# Backwards Mafia [D7]



## Negrek

_*September 1st, 2011*

Can't sleep. I know I should--there will be no opportunity once my mind is no longer my own. No matter how I try to set it aside, however, the knowledge of what is to come is too much.

So here I sit, watching the late-night news, waiting for some tidbit, some inkling of what has begun. There's nothing, though, nothing besides the usual low-grade evil that simmers in any city such as this. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. A business as gruesome as this is one they'll want to keep hushed up. It's probably for the best.

The phone has rung twice already. I didn't bother to pick it up. Some part of me is still in denial, still holding onto the hope that nothing strange is happening after all. If I pick up the receiver and hear their request, there will be no going back.

They'll call again in the morning. I can prop up my false hope until then. There is nothing I could do at this point, anyway. For now, I wait and watch with grainy eyes and pretend that life is no more than sweetly dull._

*Night Zero has begun. You have forty-eight hours for night actions.*

By this point everyone should have received their role PM. If you did not, please let me know. Good luck to all of you!


----------



## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [N0]*

_*September 3rd, 2011*

Inspector Bittern grows impatient.

"Bodies," was the first thing she said when she came in this morning. "Where the hell are all my bodies? How am I supposed to catch those bastards if they don't_ kill _anybody?"

This made the newer recruits nervous, but the rest of us took it as was intended. It is a credit to the chief that he keeps Bittern on despite her eccentricities. She looks madder than ever at times like these, when she rants and rakes her fingers through her hair until it is all stuck up in clumps, but her mind is as sharp as ever.

Not that, as she so eloquently pointed out, it does much good when we have so little evidence. I could give her no comfort when she asked me if I had translated "that demon graffiti" that appeared last night; the going is slow, and so far nothing I have uncovered is out of the ordinary--the usual wardings and promises of punishment upon those who meddle in the organization's affairs. It is odd that it should appear without a corpse, of course, but shell casings were found nearby. "Forensics hasn't found jack shit. No blood, no nothing. And nobody saw anything, naturally." Naturally. "A botched operation, maybe, or one that they managed to clean up before we got there. Not that they usually have any problem leaving bits of their work strewn all over."

So the inspector seethes and paces, consumed with anxiety but unable to act. For my part, the lack of deaths is as much a relief as it is a conundrum. My mind is not so clouded as it might be, without the screams of the newly-damned to echo through its halls. It makes untangling the mess of scrawlings left in the organization's wake that much simpler. For now, I can do naught but sit and sift through photos, trying to tease a story from the tangles of gibberish their mad priests have been so kind as to leave us._

*No one has died. Forty-eight hours for discussion.*

Additionally, there were a couple of rules questions that came up during the night that I thought I would address:

1. Doctors may not heal themselves.
2. If you die during the night, I will inform you of your death--if you've become a ghost, you'll know.


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## Sylph

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Yay, no one died...

So now what?


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## Tailsy

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Well, that's rather unfortunate. Seems like the Mafia sent in a night kill but it didn't go through for protection or alien activation reasons. You'd think this was fortunate but now we have absolutely nothing to go off! How bothersome.

Well, is anyone willing to roleclaim and give any sort of information? (No, of course not, it's Day 1 Tailsy, and every time _you_ try that you end up dead the next day @_@ INCOMPETENCE)


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## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

It's always fortunate that the mafia didn't kill someone....*surskitty.*


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## Butterfree

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

surskitty? Really? Going "WELL IT IS UNFORTUNATE THAT NOBODY DIED" seems rather excessively obvious to me; I doubt a real mafia member would say that. I would say she's probably an alien trying to get lynched, but it seems kind of excessively obvious even for _that_. (Still wouldn't bet on it, though. The deadline put on alien wins might tempt an alien to make a bigger effort to be suspicious than otherwise.)

I don't know. Phantom seems to be jumping the gun a bit, but that, too, doesn't seem like something a real mafia would do. Eh. Anybody else got anything?


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## Eifie

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*



Phantom said:


> It's always fortunate that the mafia didn't kill someone....*surskitty.*


Why would the mafia want to call attention to themselves by being disappointed that there were no deaths, though? People do have time to think before they post, and that seems like an obvious enough thing that they could easily avoid it; I don't find mentioning that to be indicative of any alignment.

I guess it's true that nobody dying means that we won't really have anything to go on until more people post and we have things to discuss. We don't have absolutely nothing to talk about, though; I'd kind of like to think about the backwards mechanic a little. I was thinking that it seems it'd actually be _harmful_ to the town for the exorcist to use their action unless a mafia member died during the night; wouldn't exorcising a ghost otherwise just mean that the town loses someone who could still be helpful in discussion, or are there situations where it would be helpful for the exorcist to act?


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## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

It's painfully obvious _and_ is a perfectly valid observation (one I'm pretty sure has been made several times before by plenty of non-mafia players in other games... myself included, iirc). Mafia is a game of information. If no one dies, no one gets any information—the best you get is a bit of alien paranoia or possible confirmation that a doctor is still alive, and this early in the game that doesn't help anyone. Of course everyone wants the members of their faction to survive, but in a game where no one dies your only shot at finding mafia is usually taking randlynch stabs in the dark. It's no fun when games are reduced to that.


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## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

How about this. I am the inspector. I inspected surskitty last night and got mafia. There was no kill last night and it's a good sized game, so even if you think I'm lying it won't effect the game that much. So here we go, we lynch surskitty and if we get mafia the doctor heals me tonight (prays for no healer clash), so I can keep doing my job.

Early/slightly nervous of dying again (I've died in like all my games in one fell swoop and swooping is bad.) roleclaim.


Actually you could lynch me too and when I come up innocent you know surskitty is mafia, but that would be stupid....


* LYNCH surskitty*

EDIT: WAS UBER NINJA'D. I left the post open way too long....

Yeah the whole first post thing was me not wanting to roleclaim but being psyched that I got a mafia on the first run...


GAH BUT ME BRAIN HAS HAD A TOTAL COLLAPSE...

No kill, I get mafia inspection... I am not so sure to lynch so quick now.... take back that vote please... I am worried about active alien here...


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## Flora

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*



Phantom said:


> Actually you could lynch me too and when I come up innocent you know surskitty is mafia, but that would be stupid....


_Alternatively,_ assuming this isn't a fake!claim, surskitty could be alien, which means lynching her might be a bad idea.

I'd prefer to *abstain* for now, just in case. Inspect her again after a few days (assuming she hasn't been exorcised) and see if she turns up innocent.

EDIT: And I get edit-ninja'd. Well now my point is moot, but still abstaining.


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## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

There _has_ been a lot of editing going on here already--you're not going to get in trouble for it unless you significantly alter what you were saying, but please try to keep it to the minimum in order to reduce confusion. Just make another post to redact an earlier statement or try to say something a different way, etc.


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## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

For the record I edit a lot because, I can't type to save my life.

EDIT: SEE?


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## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

I am trying to get us something to work off of. This game is full of mafia veterans so there must be a simple way to figure things out. Or all the veterans are mafia, which would be mean.


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## Dragon

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

posting for activity

Well clearly we're not getting anywhere without any more information, but it's better to not kill anyone than kill an innocent, I guess. So I'm going to *abstain.*


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## Mai

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Hmm. Well, I'm not exactly sure what to do. There's no vig, apparently, so I suppose if surskitty isn't dead tomorrow we know to lynch her. *Abstain.*


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## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*



Mai said:


> Hmm. Well, I'm not exactly sure what to do. There's no vig, apparently, so I suppose if surskitty isn't dead tomorrow we know to lynch her. *Abstain.*


 
NO we do NOT lynch surskitty tomorrw


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## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Her reasoning there is that if surskitty is not dead, it's because the mafia didn't kill her. If the mafia didn't kill her, it's likely that they wanted to keep her alive because she herself is mafia and they're not going to take out a teammate (and doctors certainly won't want to target her, because a) why protect a mafioso/alien and b) they could be attempting to protect you or someone else). Since the mafia would presumably want to kill an alien, if surskitty is not dead then it is most likely that she is in fact mafia and is safe to lynch. (That's not a guarantee, of course, but is more likely than not.)

So as much as I dislike abstaining, on a day as dead as this I don't think we have a choice. Just remember that we only have limited abstains, guys.

*Abstaining*.


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## Mai

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

... Am I forgetting something incredibly crucial? I probably am; I'm getting tired and that's usually when I forget important things.

If surskitty is an active alien the mafia would want to kill her to prevent an alien win. So then she would die, and once she'd dead we lynch her as an exorcism. Correct?


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## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Fine, I will join the *abstain* only to go along with the flow of things. But I still request a heal or guard or something so I don't end up dead kthanx.


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## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

_*September 5th, 2011*

Progress continues to be slow. Inspector Bittern grows more impatient, and her restlessness has infected the rest of the team. It doesn't help that there are others in the department starting to question the legitimacy of the investigation in the first place. I can't blame them. In a happier life, I too would find this business of chasing after some occult fear-mongering ludicrous.

Instead, I wonder which of the people on the street are real and which no more than hallucinations--or worse, entirely real but revealed to me alone. Once, I scoffed at superstition and conspiracy, and as a result I have been trapped forever in its dark web. I can only pray that I will not be drawn even deeper by my own madness, and so far, I have been lucky. I fear it will not remain so if the murders renew._

*No one has died. There may be up to two more abstain votes before randlynching will begin.

Forty-eight hours for night actions.*


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## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [N1]*

_*September 7th, 2011*

"It's been real tough keeping this one quiet," the officer told me as he hurried me through the police barricade. "I don't even know what they're telling the media. Like, maybe they're trying to pass it off as some kind of weird modern art protest thing, or something."

The tarp had been pulled back from the thing's upper body, and the forensics team was snapping photographs. One woman was tweezing a hair from one of the patches of skin that dotted its glass-glossy black form like tumors.

"It's a demon," I told my companion, and pulled the tarp back farther to get a better look. "A demon corpse."

"You're sure it's dead?"

"A demon is a creature of the pit that has been bound to this plane. Its essence comes here, but its body stays there. The only ones who can see it are the one who summoned it, and the one it was sent to kill. A living demon is as insubstantial as a shadow in this world. They don't kill their targets directly, but haunt them until they are driven mad by fear. To kill a demon, you must first transport its physical body from the pit, then slay it. What you see here is the corpse."

"Oh," was all the officer could think of to say. He did not care to join me in my inspection. At length he asked, "But what about those other bits?" 

"A demon takes a trophy from each thing that it kills. They show a preference for teeth." A member of the forensics team was digging one out from its rocky setting in one of the smaller mouths on the demon's first set of arms.

The officer squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "Okay. Lovely. But I don't get it. Aren't demons kind of their thing? I mean, why would they kill one of their own monsters?"

"Demons are no one's allies. They're tools, but they're very difficult to use. This one probably escaped whatever bindings they laid on it and was acting independently. It would have been at least as dangerous to them as to us." I ran my hand over the long fissure down the corpse's rocky flank. "We're lucky they got it before it went on a rampage. It would have killed all of them first, I'm sure, but after that--well, we'd have even less of a chance of defending ourselves." He was quiet after that, and I was able to collect photographs of the inscriptions tattooed on the corpse without further interruption.

As we were leaving, however, he finally asked, "How do you know all this stuff about... whatever the hell this shit is? I thought you were a janitor or something?" I had to smile at that. I suppose I should be thankful that I am able to find some humor in the turns my life has taken.

It has been difficult to sleep. The yammering never ceases. The spirits' voices remain indistinct and confused, which makes them fairly easy to ignore, but their constant prattle needles me like a horde of stinging insects. I have been able to resist doing anything rash in response to their ranting, but I fear that their incessant muttering will be enough to drive me to mad in the end. The strain of this case is already beginning to take its toll on my colleagues, after all; only yesterday, one of the junior officers was found dead in his apartment, apparently from a drug overdose. And if the stress is enough to affect them so, how can I expect to withstand it any better, with my added burden of hearing the whispers of victims and killers alike?_

*An alien is dead. An inspector is also dead. You have forty-eight hours for discussion.*

Just as a side note: you shouldn't draw any conclusions based on the sex of characters mentioned in the mod posts. I just found it difficult to write these posts without referring to the sex of the characters. However, they have nothing to do with the pronouns their associated players go by, so if a character that dies is referred to as "she," that doesn't narrow the suspects down to only players using female pronouns, etc.


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## Butterfree

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Well, this seems pretty straightforward. Mafia targeted surskittailsy, who was an alien like we guessed, and two or more doctors targeted Phantom, who was not lying about being inspector. Or at least presumably that's it, unless we're having the most ridiculous luck _ever_.

...too bad this means we're completely out of leads again, what with Phantom's only inspection having been surskittailsy. Unless the inspection went through before the doctor death and Phantom still got a result?


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## Tailsy

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Well, at least you don't have the alien to worry about any more 8| 8| 8| 8| 

_best luck ever_


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## Eifie

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Hm, I don't think it'd be so ridiculous for the mafia to have targeted somebody other than surskitty on the first night, figured that they were an alien when they didn't die, and attacked them again. A third-party role like alien wouldn't have any reason to want to claim after dying; it's possible that the mafia might've wanted to pass surskitty off as the dead alien in case that might make us less likely to want to lynch her. Maybe it'd be a good idea to lynch surskitty just to be sure. Even if that possibility's not very likely, at least we won't have to use up another chance to abstain today.


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## Tailsy

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

I don't have any reason to post at all! But sure, you can lynch me if you like - I don't imagine I can be any more dead.


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## Light

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

If it comes down to having no leads and we don't want to waste another abstain then it wouldn't be a bad idea.


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## Dragon

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

This is probably way overthinking it, but what are the chances of there being two aliens? I mean, the morning post says _an_ alien was killed, not _the._ I guess with the number of people we have, that's unlikely(?), but something about surskitty's posts makes me a bit suspicious. 

this isn't a thing is it


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## Zapi

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Multiple aliens is a _highly_ unlikely thing in mafia, except maybe in a TV Tropes Mafia-sized game or a game where multiple aliens is the theme. It's a possibility, just an extremely small one.


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## Tailsy

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

I dunno, it's probably just streamlined language used in order to confuse. I would doubt there's more than one alien, and I *was* the alien until I was shot last night. I'm dead. I can't fulfil my win condition so I don't really care what you do.


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## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

GAH I need to read better..... Butterfree is mafia... 
Phantom says "ow" and then notices that her username now has more meaning.

I would say judging by the phrasing that there is more than one inspector... so other inspector, inspect the most senior members. Butterfree got a mafia, and surskitty alien, it is possible that it's a more... senior mafia.


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## RK-9

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

*butterfwee then*


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## Mai

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*



Eifie said:


> Hm, I don't think it'd be so ridiculous for the mafia to have targeted somebody other than surskitty on the first night, figured that they were an alien when they didn't die, and attacked them again. A third-party role like alien wouldn't have any reason to want to claim after dying; it's possible that the mafia might've wanted to pass surskitty off as the dead alien in case that might make us less likely to want to lynch her. Maybe it'd be a good idea to lynch surskitty just to be sure. Even if that possibility's not very likely, at least we won't have to use up another chance to abstain today.


In a game like this, it's possible that an alien would want to contribute just for the sake of expoliting the opportunity. (I've done similar things before, even if it's impossible for me to win. Then again, I play mafia more for the fun than the strategy.)

Anyway, *Butterfree.* You guys know we have a role list, right? While it doesn't state the exact number of _everything,_ it does say "the inspector" and "the alien" as opposed to "the civilians". However, at the same time it does say "the doctor", which would not allow for healer clash.


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## Eifie

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*



Light Yagami said:


> If it comes down to having no leads and we don't want to waste another abstain then it wouldn't be a bad idea.


Right, that's what I meant. That's not really the case now, though; it might be a good idea to have an exorcist target surskitty tonight.



Windragon said:


> This is probably way overthinking it, but what are the chances of there being two aliens? I mean, the morning post says _an_ alien was killed, not _the._ I guess with the number of people we have, that's unlikely(?), but something about surskitty's posts makes me a bit suspicious.
> 
> this isn't a thing is it


A game of around this size with two aliens is not unheard of (although of course these are two different GMs and that is one game also different setup and multiple factions, etc. also not backwards) and it's possible, but either way I think the wording in Negrek's post is probably meant to avoid revealing when there's only one of a role, rather than imply that there are more than one, so as not to disclose the amount of any role in the game. I don't think there's _necessarily_ more than one alien or inspector, but there could be!



Phantom said:


> I would say judging by the phrasing that there is more than one inspector... so other inspector, inspect the most senior members. Butterfree got a mafia, and surskitty alien, it is possible that it's a more... senior mafia.


How would two experienced players not being innocent-aligned make it more likely that other experienced players are the same? It's a good idea to inspect more experienced players, yes, but not for that reason.



Mai said:


> In a game like this, it's possible that an alien would want to contribute just for the sake of expoliting the opportunity. (I've done similar things before, even if it's impossible for me to win. Then again, I play mafia more for the fun than the strategy.)
> 
> Anyway, *Butterfree.* You guys know we have a role list, right? While it doesn't state the exact number of _everything,_ it does say "the inspector" and "the alien" as opposed to "the civilians". However, at the same time it does say "the doctor", which would not allow for healer clash.


Right. :c There would be no logical, strategic reason for an alien to do that, though (they've already lost), and it's possible that the mafia could have thought of it like that.

The role list also says, "The number of players in each role depends on the number of people who sign up." Also the doctor thing, yeah.

I'll vote for *Butterfree*, then!


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## Dragon

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*



Eifie said:


> A game of around this size with two aliens is not unheard of


but see an alien won that game D: /paranoia

*I'll vote Butterfree,* anyways.


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## Chief Zackrai

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

I find it a little coincidental that Phantom rolled mafia two nights in a row. I think she is either lying rather convincingly (props for that), or she is paranoid/insane/whatever sanity that makes you always roll mafia. (the first is assuming she's lying about being an inspector, because one _is_ dead, but I'm not trying to debunk the multiple inspector theory, especially if Phantom _is_ not completely sane)

Unless Phantom is secretly dead 0_0


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## Dragon

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

An activated alien shows up as mafia, and surskitty was apparently this alien.

And Phantom is also apparently dead so..?


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## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Whooo I'm a ghoooost. Please don't remove me from the game yet exorcist. This is fuuuuun~

But really yeah I inspected Butterfree as my last act alive.


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## Chief Zackrai

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

OH DERP I should read the thread, no?

Okay, everything makes sense now.

*Butterfree*


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## Glace

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

I'm going to vote *Butterfree* for obvious reasons.


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## RK-9

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Shaddap I'm the Exorcist and I do what I want :D

Anyways; healer/bg on me?


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## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Paranoid is the always-gets-mafia sanity, just for future reference, but considering the point of this game is to test the backwards mechanic only I doubt Negrek would bother with cop sanities.

No reason not to believe Phantom from where I'm standing. I suppose it's possible she's lying, but if Butterfree turns up innocent then we can either ignore Phantom or just lynch her for being sneaky lying mafia who lies. If Butterfree is mafia, well, kudos on the awesome last move there, Phantom.


*Butterfree* it is.


Busy and distracted atm so not going to comment on RK's claim, if indeed there is anything to say on the matter. Urgh, projects.


(Ooh, that reminds me. Are we still getting player alignments revealed on exorcism/lynch?)


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## RK-9

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

I wouldn`t know; no one died night 0 and I thought I sent in my night action but I didn't in Night 1.

Also we can`t lynch phantom because she's dead.


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## Flora

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

@ RK-10: Technically we _can_, it would just have no effect. Assuming she wasn't fake!claiming, in which case it probably would.

Anyways, lynching *Butterfree* since Phantom's the only one we can go off of


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## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

SHIT WHY DID YOU CLAIM RK-10?

If you really are the exorcist, WHY?

Other inspector (if there is one) kick his ass and inspect him.

EDIT: (Also I proved myself because I helped save us from potentially lynching an alien or at least having an active alien)


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## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Question was directed at Negrek, RK, not at you. Sorry.

Lynching dead players does have an effect—it removes their chance to offer input from beyond the grave. Since we all know Butterfree is (most likely) mafia then we have no reason to listen to what she says post-mortem anyway, unless for some reason she feels like selling out the rest of her faction, but if a mafia member was to die and we _didn't_ know who it was, they could still pretend to be innocent and alive and thus lead the town astray. Moot point for now, I guess, but not in the future.


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## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*



Kratos Aurion said:


> (Ooh, that reminds me. Are we still getting player alignments revealed on exorcism/lynch?)


When a player is lynched, their alignment, but not their role, is revealed. This happens even if the player was already dead; you get informed of the player's alignment at their time of death, as well as the fact that they were, in fact, dead.

When a player is exorcised, neither their (former) alignment nor role is revealed.


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## bulbasaur

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Couldn't an exorcist do the job instead?


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## bulbasaur

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

To clarify, that was for Kratos Aurion


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## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Do what job? You mean stopping a mafioso from continuing to confuse us? Sure, but that's only if they know that they're exorcising a mafioso. RK could get rid of Butterfree after we lynch her, but that's not necessary because we already know not to trust her thanks to Phantom. If all we get is "a mafioso has died" and we had no leads before that, though, then the exorcist wouldn't have any better idea who to go for than we would and so wouldn't be of any especial help there.

So I wasn't really talking about intentionally lynching a dead player we know is mafia; I was speaking more generally about it not "having no effect".


...I'm not really sure I know what you're asking that about, actually.


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## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

If you're lynched, you're out permanently. So an exorcist couldn't get rid of Butterfree later if you lynch her; she'll be out of the game entirely. Sorry if that wasn't clear; I don't want you guys getting hung up on a rules misunderstanding.

For reference, players will only have their names struck from the list at the top of the thread when they are _eliminated_ from play, either by lynching or by being exorcised when a ghost. Any of the non-struckthrough players can still post during the day, but may be either alive or dead.


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## Light

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*



Phantom said:


> Butterfree is mafia...


Considering *butterfree* is apparently mafia and surskitty was apparently alien, and I am someone negrek has probably never heard of and a vanilla townsperson, I'm an itty bit suspicious the roles weren't RNG'ed.


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## Negrek

*Re:   Backwards Mafia [D1]*

I can assure you that the roles were randomized.


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## Grass King

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

I'm voting for *Butterfree.*


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## Butterfree

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

:(

But I'm innocent I tell you!


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## RK-9

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

I did not get a result.


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## Zapi

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

*Butterfree* seems to be the only lead that we have at the moment.


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## Mai

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*



Butterfree said:


> :(
> 
> But I'm innocent I tell you!


Care to claim? We'll most likely lynch you anyway, but.

Anyway, while I'm extremely frustrated with RK-10's claim I suppose he's most likely innocent; he tends to roleclaim quite often (and unnecessarily) from previous experience.



RK-10 said:


> Shaddap I'm the Exorcist and I do what I want :D
> 
> Anyways; healer/bg on me?


There's no bodyguard; only a doctor. Please don't exorcise Phantom unless Butterfree turns up _not_ mafia.


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## RK-9

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

Okay. Mostly roleclaiming because DOCTORS DOCTORS DOCTORs.


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## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D1]*

_*September 9th, 2011*

I'd forgotten how sudden it can be. I was walking home from the station, not thinking of anything in particular, when voices that had been only whispers rose to screams. I almost stumbled and had to lean against a storefront until I could see again and hear over the din of the spirits' command.

Of course, by the time I could make any sense of their words, they were roaring that I was letting their target get away. They sent me staggering through the crowd, bouncing off shoulders and deaf to the curses and epithets that filled my wake. I followed the spirits' directions blindly until I was able to figure out who it was they wanted me to see.

It was a woman, tall and dark-haired and probably on her way home from work as well. Her high heels clacked against the pavement, and both her briefcase and her earrings swayed with the rhythm of her brisk walk. When I looked at her, the baying of the spirits was so loud I thought the force of their wrath might force my eyes from their sockets.

She was walking so quickly, I thought she was absorbed in her own thoughts and had no chance of noticing me. I had little thought for caution, as it was hard to concentrate on anything with the clamor in my skull. She left the main street, and I followed her through back alleys and past crumbling old buildings.

But she was not oblivious, and at last turned on me, demanding to know who I was and why I was following her. I was too startled to reply, and the resurgence of the voices was enough to drown out any half-formed thoughts. I blundered forward, reaching for her blindly. I was propelled by nothing but the urge to quiet the spirits, driven by their anger and call for retribution. She was too surprised by the suddenness of my attack to put up a proper defense, and our struggle was brief. I managed to pull her briefcase away from her, and a lucky blow to her jaw stunned her for long enough for me to knock her down. I smashed her head in with the briefcase until she stopped moving, and probably would have continued even past that point if the sudden departure of the voices hadn't caused me to drop it.

When I searched the body, I found that the spirits had not been groundlessly provoked. In one of her pockets she kept their symbol, the cross and the blinded eye, on a long chain. I left it when I fled. Let the police know what sort of person she was.

I should have gone back and burned the body. I do not remember how I escaped from the alley or returned to my apartment; I was simply there, several hours later, exhausted and in silence, inside and out. By then it was too late, and I could not remember the way back.

She was going into the darker side of town, and so probably to one of their meetings. If I had been thinking straight, if I had been more cautious, I might have followed her straight into the rats' nest itself. Perhaps I could have ended it all today, then and there.

I'll see to it that she burns. I'll have access to the body later. She should burn. They should all burn. Fire is the only thing that can truly scour their presence from this world. They will all burn. I'll see to it. I'll burn them all.

No sleep tonight._

*Butterfree is dead. She was mafia.

Forty-eight hours for night actions.*


----------



## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D2]*

_*September 11th, 2011*

I've been trying to lie low ever since the woman's body was discovered. Surely Inspector Bittern suspects, but she also needs me. It is only by her grace that I'm here and not locked up in an institution somewhere, after all.

I try not to think about my slip. If there's one thing one can say for having one's mind invaded by ghosts, it is that it leaves little opportunity for introspection. No doubt there are more crimes in my future, but there is nothing I can do to prevent them. I do my best to concentrate on the now, on not simply surviving this terror but working to end it.

Today, that meant joining the investigation of the latest death. He didn't go quietly, which was probably the only reason his body was discovered so soon; the neighbors reported the noise. A loner, no known associates, living by himself in a dingy apartment--but a brilliant exorcist for his age, completely devoted to his trade.

The police have poked suspiciously through his possessions, flipping through books written in languages long dead and turning over icons and exotic implements, the tools of his trade. To them, he probably looks just as suspicious as any in the faction that killed him, save for the fact that much of his apartment has been redecorated in messages scrawled in blood from his broken remains.

The translation of these was a simple matter. It was little more than what I expected. "You may have killed one of our own, but we know who you are. We are coming for you, and when we find you, you will wish we had been kind enough to simply kill you."

Let them come. At least it will end this suspense, following their gruesome trail of corpses and jumping at every shadow. My life is already a nightmare; I am too exhausted to fear their threats and insinuations any longer._

*An exorcist has died. Forty-eight hours for discussion.*

I guess I forgot to press the night phase button or somehow last time? Anyway, I apologize if my hitting it twice to get it back to day now hits you with a bunch of notifications or anything.


----------



## Eifie

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D2]*

Well! I don't think there'd be any harm in RK telling us whether or not he's the dead exorcist, would there? If he is, I'm sort of confused as to why the mafia would want to target him; I still can't really see how the exorcist would turn out to be a super-useful role for the innocents except in the unlikely situation of us not believing someone who claims to be dead but not wanting to lynch them, either (unlikely because it seems like it would be a silly move for the mafia to claim a dead role when the dead person could just speak up to contradict them) or if we don't want to waste a day phase lynching someone we know to be dead and mafia (which doesn't even seem like such a great idea anyhow in a game with limited abstains). I guess maybe the mafia didn't think it through that much, or maybe they're seeing something really obvious about the exorcist that I'm missing?

Also, it seems that surskitty is still in the game! I wonder if that's because an exorcist tried to exorcise her and it failed, or if they just didn't think exorcising her would be a good idea. I guess it is better to have someone we can use a lynch on if we need to so that we can save our abstains for when they might be useful. I'd like to know who RK targeted last night, though.

(Isn't it day three? Or did we start with day zero?)


----------



## RK-9

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D2]*

I am the dead Exorcist. D: I did not even GET A RESULT D:


----------



## Negrek

*Re:      Backwards Mafia [D2]*



Eifie said:


> (Isn't it day three? Or did we start with day zero?)


Ugh, yes, it's day three. I guess one of my classes this semester is going to have to be "remedial counting."


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

(For future reference wrt the day/night count, you can check by looking at the "Re:" titles on any post other than the first one in the thread; the titles there don't change when the thread title is updated.)

I was going to say that it was possible that RK was healer-clashed (honestly with a claim like that followed by begging for heals he was sort of asking for it), but the flavor would probably rule that out, wouldn't it. (...would it, Negrek?) I agree that the exorcist doesn't seem all that useful, ultimately, especially not this early in the game, so... no idea what the mafia was thinking, really!

Who did you target, RK? I'm not sure what you mean by "get a result" unless you're saying you did target surskitty and it seems to have failed, or...?

'Course it's probably for the best that it wasn't healer clash. Otherwise we wouldn't know where the mafia's kill had wandered off to, and since the don would be dead if they hadn't killed then that might mean there was another alien. :/ (Or more than two doctors, which would be better, but. Yeah.)


----------



## RK-9

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

I did not get a result from my exorcism.

I also like the fact the flavortext basically POINTS OUT my exorcism role: "He was a great exorcist for his age" coupled with the fact I'm 10 basically gives it away.


----------



## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*



Kratos Aurion said:


> (...would it, Negrek?)


Almost definitely.


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

Mkay, thanks Negrek.

@RK: Who did you target? If we knew who you were talking about then "no result" may or may not still be meaningful information we can work with. Maybe it won't, but why not at least give it a shot?


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

DAMMIT. Ok I got nothing, since I'm dead I don't get an action anymore. 

So the genius exocist is dead. Now I vote we lynch RK-10. If they are dead already they are no use to us, and if they were lying we get a mafia. *RK-10*


Question, if the alien is already dead, and lynched do they still win? 

Healer clash is  very possible, but what if it's a mafia set up? They found out the exorcist, and had RK-10 claim it, then killed that exorcist that night.  Still lynching RK-10 won't hurt us at all if we do... just something feels fishy... The exorcist is important, but this sadly, makes me more comfortable since the only way I can be removed from play is to be lynched... but there'd be no point in that since I'm dead already.... So lemme give you a list of amazingness.

Night 0
No one dies(alien activated?)

Day 1
No one lynched (fear of alien)

Night 1
Alien dead (surskitty)
Inspector dead (hi(Phantom))

Day 2
Lynched Butterfree (mafia)

Night 2
Exorcist dead (RK-10?)


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

Eh... I guess? How would the mafia have found out (definitively, anyway) who the exorcist was, though, especially this early?

Anyway, if we really have no other leads and want to lynch someone so as not to waste an abstain, I would rather go with surskitty because I don't see any particular reason not to trust RK, though I'm still waiting to hear who he actually targeted. I doubt that she can still win by lynching if she's dead, but I guess it doesn't hurt to wait for Negrek to answer your question. (Which, by the way, I don't think she noticed... you really ought to have just double posted there.)

C'mon, guys, why all the quiet? Does no one else have anything to contribute at all? Generally I don't like it when people post with nothing but an "I'm sorry, I have nothing to say", because honestly I rarely find that there's _nothing_ to say, but can you all at least confirm you're still actually paying attention? :/


----------



## Tailsy

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

But ya'll left me for dead tho.


----------



## Grass King

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

Well there were 17 people signed up for this, and 7 fixed roles.

So 17 people means 16 non-aliens assuming there is only one alien. There are 5 non-civilian roles (since there are two Fishing Brothers). Now assuming that there are two Doctors (and not in a Meta-Crisis way), and only one Inspector and Exorcist, that gives us 7 more fixed roles (inclusing mafia-don) which leaves us with 9 people split between Civilians and Minions.

Now we know that the Exorcist, Alien and Inspector are dead, as well as one member of the mafia. So if my above theory is correct, then all that remains are:

2 Fishing Brothers
2 Doctors
1 Mafia Don
x Civilians
8-x Mafia Minions

Not sure is this helps at all.

However one further point I would like to raise, is that in the few Mafia games I have participated in (mainly the ASB Halloween ones) Kratos Aurion is always killed off fairly early in the game usually the first night. So maybe Kratos is mafia? It's a possibility, but maybe the Doctors targeted him, or maybe he was the Alien, got activated on the first night, and then the mafia bumbed him off the next night although surskitty has already admitted to that role, but maybe surskitty is mafia and just claimed to be the Alien to avoid us lynching her? Just thought I might raise the points.


----------



## Tailsy

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

Claiming to be dead and then continuing to post stupid images is a rubbish Mafia tactic.


----------



## RK-9

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

I targetted a random inactive; inactivity could mean they died and lost interest so I target Zapi.


----------



## Eifie

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*



Grass King said:


> So if my above theory is correct, then all that remains are:
> 
> 2 Fishing Brothers
> 2 Doctors
> 1 Mafia Don
> x Civilians
> 8-x Mafia Minions


Hm, in a regular game with seventeen people I'd expect to start out with four or five mafia members (including the don), but the backwards mechanic might've called for different numbers to balance things or something, I don't know. Well, two or three remaining mafia minions would leave us with six or five civilians if you're right about the number of other roles.



Grass King said:


> However one further point I would like to raise, is that in the few Mafia games I have participated in (mainly the ASB Halloween ones) Kratos Aurion is always killed off fairly early in the game usually the first night. So maybe Kratos is mafia? It's a possibility, but maybe the Doctors targeted him, or maybe he was the Alien, got activated on the first night, and then the mafia bumbed him off the next night although surskitty has already admitted to that role, but maybe surskitty is mafia and just claimed to be the Alien to avoid us lynching her? Just thought I might raise the points.


It's possible that Kratos could still be alive because she's mafia, but also I think she tends to be kind of a doctor magnet; the mafia might've thought of that and decided to go for someone else (surskitty?) instead of risking wasting a night.

Yeah, I thought earlier that surskitty could be lying about claiming to be the dead alien; maybe we'll find out once RK tells us who he targeted last night! If Kratos was the alien, though, what motivation would she have to keep posting and saying things like she has been after the alien died? (Except to try to encourage people to talk more, I guess.)

(Also, I really doubt that the dead alien would be able to win if we lynched it now; a ghost can't win the game on its own and it's been two day phases since the alien would've been activated, anyway, assuming it was activated on the first night.)


----------



## Dragon

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

I'm alive, I just honestly have had nothing to say :[ Erm. 

@Grass King; Surskitty/the alien was killed at night, though. So unless we have a vig she's _very likely_ not mafia. or maybe it is a convoluted gambit buh


----------



## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*



Phantom said:


> Question, if the alien is already dead, and lynched do they still win?


No.

And this is why I said not to edit; if it's going to become a problem, I'll start enforcing that as a strict rule.


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

Just so you know I edited literally like two minutes after I posted.


----------



## Negrek

*Re:   Backwards Mafia [D3]*

Nine minutes, according to the timestamp, but it's not worth splitting hairs here. If anyone else in the game is online at the time you make a post, you have no way of knowing whether they noticed the new post and clicked in the time between when you posted and started editing. It's just courtesy to your fellow players (and me)--if you have something significant to add/clarify/change about your post, _please_ just make a second post.


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

Copy.

So ideas? Lynch surskitty?


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

Might as well, since we don't want to waste our abstains. *surskitty*.

(As for why I'm not dead... the fact that I usually get killed the first night is actually why I don't join many games anymore—there's little point if I'm effectively not going to be able to play nine times out of ten. Isn't it possible that the mafia just felt like actually letting me do something for a few days for once? :/

...or doctors, I guess, though it strikes me as odd that none of them would have protected surskitty since she's also a good player and has played more often and more recently than I have; people would be a bit more familiar with her than with me. Eh. I dunno. Meta arguments, etc.)


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

Actually I was going to inspect you after Butterfree... but I came up with a case of being dead.

*surskitty* it is then.

It's a half step forward... kinda... sorta.


----------



## Dragon

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

I guess there's nothing else to go on. Bye, *Surskitty* :V


----------



## Grass King

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

Since we don't have any other ideas, may as well. *surskitty*.


----------



## Zapi

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

Buh-bye to *surskitty*.
By the way, RK-10 (and everyone else, but I'm speaking mostly to RK since he apparently tried to exorcise me last night), I'm still alive; I just haven't been posting because...well, honestly, I don't have anything to say. Or, when I _do_ have something to say, someone else has already said it (or I get the 'server is busy' message and by the time I can get back on the site I forget what I was going to say).


----------



## Chief Zackrai

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

I thought surskitty was dead? @_@


----------



## Mai

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

Dead people can talk; you get rid of them permanently by exorcising or lynching them.


----------



## Mai

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

Since I can't remember whether I bandwagoned yet or not, *surskitty.*


----------



## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*

_*September 15th, 2011*

A pall of misfortune hangs over the investigation. The killings continue, and all we have to show for them are a mess of dead ends and empty rooms. More than once we thought we might have some clue as to where they were meeting, but our raids have discovered nothing but scorched, abandoned pentacles and walls covered with their mocking scrawls.

My own steps have been dogged by a shadow of malice, some unholy thing vomited up from the blackest depths of hell. Now and again I would give a start when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. It was a monstrous shadow, hunched and indistinct. As the hours passed, its appearances grew more frequent, and its form gradually grew more clear. Always, it simply watched, not caring whether I saw it or not, making no threatening move.

Today I could stand it no longer. When I saw it perched on a dumpster near my apartment, the hunched suggestion of wings at its back and horns sprouting from what I took to be its head. Anger caught at me when I saw it sitting there so placidly, smug in its knowledge that I would walk right past, doing my best to convince myself that I didn't see it. Against all judgement I ran at it, yelling; it did not move. And when I grabbed some piece of rubbish off the street and hurled it at the thing, it passed through and bounced harmlessly off the wall. The creature itself vanished, as I've seen so many illusions do.

It was no demon summoned up from that other place, but one of my own mind's making.
_

*surskitty is exorcised. She was already dead.

Forty-eight hours for night actions.*


----------



## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [N3]*

_*September 17th, 2011*

This morning, I rose to find the organization had left me a gift. The living room window was smashed and the couch gummed with congealed blood. The corpse sprawled across it crawled with flies. How they managed to accomplish the delivery here to the sixth floor and without my notice I can only guess, but given their methods I'm sure it was little difficulty for them. Sometimes I wonder whether they leave me alive simply for the pleasure of watching my torment.

The police officer that arrived in response to my call was one I didn't recognize, but he seemed to know me. He bantered away as he examined the scene, taking notes and promising that the forensics team would arrive soon. "It's a bad business," he said with a shake of his head. "It's been hard on all of us, hasn't it? Some more than others."

I agreed, of course, but he wasn't done. After a time he went on. "It gets to you after a while, you know. All these weird deaths, all this occult mumbo-jumbo. It's not right, not for people to be dying like this, and not for us to be snapping at crumbs of evidence in this damned investigation. You have to wonder what it's doing to us. This is a case you don't just walk away from, whatever the outcome."

I shrugged, uncomfortable without really knowing why. He turned to look out for the window a moment, then turned back slowly, eyes narrowed as he said, "I know you killed her, and all the rest of them. You really thought you could keep it a secret with all of us combing through the records on the previous inspection? Inspector Bittern did a good job of cleaning them up, but nobody's perfect."

I couldn't reply. There was no way he could be telling the truth; if he was, he wouldn't have come alone this morning. They would have sent a full squad; they would have to realize I wouldn't go quietly. I tried to concentrate over the rising murmurs in my head. Any misstep here, and I would at best spend the rest of my life locked away--a prospect that I must admit seems terribly attractive some days.

The officer came around the couch, smiling broadly. "If we're looking for the murderers, why are we ignoring the one that's right under our nose? You've made your own deal with the devil, haven't you?"

I had been backing up, but was forced to stop when my back struck the counter. I reached behind myself, scrambling for something to use as a weapon but only succeeding in knocking a couple of glasses to the floor, where they smashed.

The officer shook his head, taking another step forward. "They should all burn. It's the only just end for them. And who are you? Did you really think you could outsmart them all? Someday you'll burn too. We know what you are now. It's only a matter of time" I scrambled on the floor after a piece of glass, heedless of how it cut me as I grasped it. I lashed out at the officer's midsection, but my strike cut through nothing but empty air. In a blink, the man was gone.



"Those bastards," Inspector Bittern said, after I had opened the door to the police for the second time that morning and endured their poring over the scene. "We're going to have to put you into protective custody."

The bandage on my hand had gone unremarked upon and unexplained. I wonder if she meant to protect me from the organization, or myself._

*A civilian is dead.

RK-10 has been exorcised.

Forty-eight hours for discussion.*


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

LIES!

Ok, so either there are two exorcists or I will come back from the dead and kill RK-10 again... Sooooo confused right now. Otherwise I'm not much help, sorry.


----------



## Sylph

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

I'm not much help myself, and frankly I'm sort of confused by where to proceed with all this. What I can gather though is that we may have more than one exorcist so...hopefully they won't get themselves killed via Mafia or healer clash...or healers avoiding a clash at the same time and leaving them wide open...such bad luck.


----------



## Grass King

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D3]*



Grass King said:


> Well there were 17 people signed up for this, and 7 fixed roles.
> 
> So 17 people means 16 non-aliens assuming there is only one alien. There are 5 non-civilian roles (since there are two Fishing Brothers). Now assuming that there are two Doctors (and not in a Meta-Crisis way), and only one Inspector and Exorcist, that gives us 7 more fixed roles (inclusing mafia-don) which leaves us with 9 people split between Civilians and Minions.
> 
> Now we know that the Exorcist, Alien and Inspector are dead, as well as one member of the mafia. So if my above theory is correct, then all that remains are:
> 
> 2 Fishing Brothers
> 2 Doctors
> 1 Mafia Don
> x Civilians
> 8-x Mafia Minions
> 
> Not sure is this helps at all.
> 
> However one further point I would like to raise, is that in the few Mafia games I have participated in (mainly the ASB Halloween ones) Kratos Aurion is always killed off fairly early in the game usually the first night. So maybe Kratos is mafia? It's a possibility, but maybe the Doctors targeted him, or maybe he was the Alien, got activated on the first night, and then the mafia bumbed him off the next night although surskitty has already admitted to that role, but maybe surskitty is mafia and just claimed to be the Alien to avoid us lynching her? Just thought I might raise the points.


By amending my theory to fit what we know, we end up with:

Originally: Two Fishing Brothers, Two Doctors, One Inspector, Two Exorcists, 1 Mafia Don, 1 Alien and 8 people split between cilivian or minion.

2 Fishing Brothers
2 Doctors
1 Mafia Don
7-x Civilians
x Minions


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

Gah screw it I will take a chance. *Kratos *


----------



## Dragon

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

RK-10 was the exorcist, right? The exorcist was exorcised haha okay.

Maybe there's a vig? The mafia killed RK-10 again and the vig killed the civilian?


----------



## Eifie

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

I'm not so surprised that there would be more than one exorcist, really. Exorcist still doesn't strike me as a very powerful role, and besides, the main point of this game is to test out the backwards mechanic, isn't it? It wouldn't be a very good test if there was only one exorcist and they died early on. :c

What does confuse me, though, is why exorcists are still trying to exorcise innocents! Exorcist would make a lot more sense as a kind of half-mafia role (like terrorist, drug dealer, etc.), and maybe that could explain it (though then I'd expect Phantom to also have been exorcised), except exorcist _is_ under the innocents section of the role list, so I guess not. Maybe they could've just wanted to test out their power, but Tailsy was a better target for exorcism earlier and nobody targeted her, so. I have no clue.



Phantom said:


> Gah screw it I will take a chance. *Kratos *


Why? Are you voting for her just because she's (possibly) not dead yet, or have you got some other reason to be suspicious? If it's the former, well, I wouldn't really expect the mafia to spend a night going after her when people have expressed suspicion about the fact that she's still alive in the thread; that only applies for last night, though. Hmmm.



Windragon said:


> Maybe there's a vig? The mafia killed RK-10 again and the vig killed the civilian?


We don't have a vig on the role list, though. I think the fishing brothers are the only other killing roles (except doctors with healer clash, but the flavour text seems to indicate otherwise), but none of them have actually died yet.


----------



## Mai

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*



Phantom said:


> Gah screw it I will take a chance. *Kratos *


I... haven't been paying too much attention to all my forum mafias (that one #mafia game was fun, Eifie!) lately, but why? Because Kratos isn't dead yet? No doctors have died if I remember correctly, and Kratos would be a pretty obvious heal.

Also, this flavortext is _amazing._ All I can think of is Cities in Dust and it's so wonderful :D


----------



## Zapi

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

Well, it's sort of good to know we have another exorcist around...I guess. I really can't think of a situation where the exorcist would be helpful to the town, either.

What I _don't_ understand why the exorcist would want to exorcise RK in the first place. If they were suspicious of him, why would they bother wasting an exorcism on someone who might or might not be dead (seeing as there hasn't been a mafia death yet iirc)?


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*



Grass King said:


> By amending my theory to fit what we know, we end up with:
> 
> Originally: Two Fishing Brothers, Two Doctors, One Inspector, Two Exorcists, 1 Mafia Don, 1 Alien and 8 people split between cilivian or minion.
> 
> 2 Fishing Brothers
> 2 Doctors
> 1 Mafia Don
> 7-x Civilians
> x Minions


I'm a little confused here. What exactly is this list of: remaining roles or the roles we started with? You hadn't included exorcists at all in your original even though RK had claimed (because I think that was remaining roles...?), and you seem to have left them out of the second part of the list now... was that intentional and I'm just missing something?



Phantom said:


> Gah screw it I will take a chance. *Kratos *



I'd also like to know why you're nominating me! I'll claim if I must, but I'd obviously rather not direct the mafia's actions toward me/away from me to someone more useful/etc. so I don't intend to do so unless there's serious conviction behind the nomination and all that.

If nothing else, I would think it's wiser to wait for a little more information before voting for someone without suspicions you can actually back up. You have all day to react to your gut feelings, and in the meantime someone might have something important to say! At the very least I'd like to know who did die, because no, it wasn't me. Not this time, anyway. >>;


----------



## Zapi

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

Oh and Phantom, if you're really dead like you claim to be, then why would you bother voting for Kratos? I'm pretty sure the sign-up thread said that the votes of dead players don't count. Unless you're just trying to get a bandwagon going, which I can understand (though it'd be nice if you said why you were suspicious of Kratos in the first place).


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

I AM MAKING A STATEMENT! I can attempt to vote if a want! Not like it means anything!


----------



## Dragon

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*



Phantom said:


> I AM MAKING A STATEMENT! I can attempt to vote if a want! Not like it means anything!


or maybe you forgot you were pretending to be dead

I should really remember that role list wow okay this is the second time I've forgotten about it. I don't have anything else useful to say though; maybe the other exorcist is mafia aligned I dunno.


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

Mafia aligned exorcist.... That kind of would make sense, not really though...

If I get exorcised tonight I swear.


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

It would make sense, imo (as with Eifie, I would've cast it as a mafia role from the start, not an innocent one, as the benefit to the town ultimately seems small), but I'm pretty sure there can't be one after a look at the role list.

You still haven't said why you're voting for me, Phantom. I'd still like to know that, even if it is just some sort of gut feeling.


----------



## Zapi

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

Sorry if it sounded like I didn't trust you, Phantom! I was really just wondering why you suddenly wanted to lynch Kratos. I just have a really weird way of wording things sometimes, haha.

(I'd also like to point out that in a different mafia game, Phantom had a gut feeling about me being mafia and none of the remaining players believed her, but her gut feeling ended up being correct. This probably won't be relevant in this game, but just throwing that out there.)


----------



## Eifie

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*



Grass King said:


> By amending my theory to fit what we know, we end up with:
> 
> Originally: Two Fishing Brothers, Two Doctors, One Inspector, Two Exorcists, 1 Mafia Don, 1 Alien and 8 people split between cilivian or minion.
> 
> 2 Fishing Brothers
> 2 Doctors
> 1 Mafia Don
> 7-x Civilians
> x Minions


Like Kratos said, it seems like you've forgotten to actually include the living exorcist in your new list:

2 Fishing Brothers
2 Doctors
1 Exorcist
1 Mafia Don
x Minions
6-x Civilians

I don't think we know for _sure_ that there's a second exorcist out there; as indicated after Tailsy's lynching, "exorcised" in the flavour text doesn't necessary mean "targeted by an exorcist". In this case it seems very likely since there's no evidence of the civilian death being due to healer clash, but. I just want to put that out there anyway because I'm still very confused as to why an exorcist would target RK.


----------



## Zapi

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*



Eifie said:


> I don't think we know for _sure_ that there's a second exorcist out there; as indicated after Tailsy's lynching, "exorcised" in the flavour text doesn't necessary mean "targeted by an exorcist".


Is there any other way someone could've been eliminated from the game during the night phase, though? The other exorcist targeting RK doesn't make any sense to me either, but I can't think of any other explanation for it.


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

They might have thought he was lying, I suppose, although we haven't had any mafia deaths aside from Butterfree being lynched. If RK was mafia he couldn't possibly be dead, so that'd still be a very strange move.

Puzzling as it is, though, I doubt we'll be hearing from this other exorcist if they do in fact exist. RK was killed shortly after he roleclaimed, and this other exorcist might want to remain hidden. Unless there is some other way he could've been removed from play (and I can't think of one at the moment), I'm not sure worrying about it is going to get us anywhere.


----------



## Light

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

I am still here. I'd half like the exorcist on me tonight so I can know if I'm still alive. Or are we supposed to get a notification if that (our death) happens?


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

Negrek said she'd tell a player if something happened to them, so you are not our dead civilian. Unless Negrek forgot or something, anyway.


----------



## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*



Light Yagami said:


> I am still here. I'd half like the exorcist on me tonight so I can know if I'm still alive. Or are we supposed to get a notification if that (our death) happens?


You will get a notification, and I haven't forgotten any notifications this game.

So, time's up for discussion, but there doesn't appear to be any clear move towards nomination or voting. I'm going to extend the voting period another ~15 hours or so, ending at 1:00 PM tomorrow; if there is no change in voting, Kratos will die because he's the only person with a nomination or vote on him if Phantom is alive; if Phantom is dead, the consensus will instead be taken as "abstain." You have two more abstains to use before someone gets randlynched. If you want to change those outcomes, you have fifteen hours to put more votes or nominations on the table.


----------



## Eifie

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

Well! Phantom still hasn't given us a reason for her vote, and I think it'd be pretty silly to just let Kratos die (although of course Phantom is most likely the dead inspector, so we'd probably end up abstaining instead), but reading over the thread, nothing's really stricken me as particularly suspicious. I guess we've got a few other options that I can think of for today if nobody else comes up with anything:

We could use up one of our abstains, but we might want to save those up in case they might be useful later;

We could lynch Phantom, who has already probably lost her role and wouldn't be much of a loss in that sense, but she _has_ been posting, so it would probably be better for us to leave her alive; 

Or we could go for an inactive lynch, which would probably result in a pretty insignificant loss, but wouldn't be very fun. :| Glace has only posted once (solely to vote for Butterfree) and that seems to be his usual behaviour. And I noticed that Flower Doll (two posts in this game), who also usually doesn't seem to post, did post early on in the game as the sort-of-first (due to edit ninja) person to speak up against lynching Tailsy. Tailsy turned out to be active alien like Flower Doll predicted. The mafia would've known who they'd targeted the night before and wanted to avoid lynching Tailsy; of course, that's also a thing that any innocent would be wary of as well after a night with no deaths, but it stuck out to me just a tiny bit because Flower Doll just doesn't normally tend to participate. (I think she's said she's been trying, though, so. I don't know; this isn't much of a point, anyway. Just a little tiny thing I wondered about, I guess.)

Umm, I'm sort of half-asleep and don't really have any particular inclination towards any of these courses of action right now, so I'll check back in the morning and hopefully people might have posted things and then I can maybe choose a thing to bold!


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

Probably shouldn't be posting right now (busyyyyy) but I can't even guarantee I'll be awake at one so oh, well, input.

As I said before I'll claim if I absolutely must, but I'd prefer not to paint targets on myself or others unnecessarily so hopefully it won't come to that!

I am going to vote to *abstain* for now. I don't have any concrete suspicions and don't want to lynch without some sort of reason/without talking it over first, but at the same time I'd rather not get lynched on a technicality if Phantom's not actually dead—I'm inclined to believe her when she says she is, but just to be safe! (And if it turns out she's not dead... well! Then we know who to lynch tomorrow!) I would ultimately like to save our abstains too, of course, so if anything better comes along I'm more than happy to change my vote.

As for actual targets, Glace and Flower Doll would be an okay place to start. I would like to give them a chance to speak up and prove they're participating first, though; then maybe Glace since he's contributed the least, and Flower Doll the next day if she still doesn't check in and we still have no leads?


----------



## Eifie

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

Right, lynching someone today with barely any time left for them to post wouldn't be such a good idea. I guess for now abstaining is all we've got, then; I'm not going to actually add my vote since Kratos's is all we need to balance out Phantom's probably-not-vote and if it turns out to be a tie, I'd like to see what happens. (Also just in case something comes up in the last few hours and we decide we don't want to abstain!)


----------



## Mai

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

Hmm. Well. _If_ we're going to abstain (which seems to be the general consensus), we might as well prove Phantom's death while we're at it. You seem to have forgotten that bulbasaur as well has only posted twice, although that wasn't really an entire list; I propose we vote off one of the inactives with Phantom (or have Phantom vote off herself) and see what happens. If we abstain, great! (Except for the fact that, you know, an inspector is dead. But that's already something that happened.) If not, we have a target!


----------



## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D4]*

_*September 21st, 2011*

I imagine I would find protective custody relaxing, if it weren't for the anxiety of waiting. All has been quiet for the past several days, within and without. There have been no major hallucinations since that of the police officer, and my hand is healing well.

I keep myself busy, lest my free time provide me with too much time to think and dwell on why I spend my days under the watch of officers the department can scarce afford to part with.

There are two of them that trade shifts on guard, one a woman I remember vaguely from the last days of the previous investigation, and another, a young man who has all the signs of a greenhorn. He seems to resent his assignment and spends his time bored and surly.

The other is usually content enough, and we talk from time to time. Today she told me that she thought she'd seen me before, on television. It's been so long since I'd even thought of such things that I had to smile.

"You were a professor, weren't you? Or still are?" she asked. I shook my head, and she didn't pursue the matter. "I remember they used to call you in to consult on all kinds of news stories. What was it that you studied? It was something to do with history, wasn't it?"

"Only as much as history is a part of everything else, I suppose. Religious studies."

The officer nodded and watched in silence for a few minutes as I flipped back through my notes. "I guess you never thought you'd end up using it for something like this, did you?"

I shrugged. "When you became a police officer, did you think you would be doing something like this?" She nodded, and that was the last we spoke before she left._

*No one has died. There may be up to one more abstain vote before randlynching occurs.

Forty-eight hours for night actions.*


----------



## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

_*September 27th, 2011*

Times grow difficult again. I am restless; the police are restless; and the spirits are restless, filling my head with their impatient conversation. They demand action, and though I must deny them, it is difficult to argue with the voices in your own head. This is especially true if one is attempting to look normal and untroubled for the benefit of the police. As much as anything else, the knowledge that I am being watched over, even if with benevolent intent, is vexing. How long will I be able to control myself before I do something drastic and, most likely, am forced to still more extreme measures to cover it up?

The officers assigned to my guard come and go, more frustrated all the while. Now and again they bring me news of the investigation, but far more often they simply don't wish to talk about it. It goes poorly, I think. The only time they seem at all excited is when they bring me some evidence, news of a recent murder, and wait as I analyze it. They're hoping for some sort of revelation, for me to somehow connect the dots and bring everything to a close by staring at the latest stack of photos. Again and again, they are disappointed--as, I must admit to myself now and again, am I.

The most recent deaths are the most puzzling. There appears to be nothing to connect them, nothing save that the victims are so ordinary. So far as I or any of the police can tell, their deaths follow no pattern. But what good could such random murders possibly do the organization? They sow terror and despair, to be sure, but I'm certain they aim much higher than that. I can't understand their strategy, and with the headaches and lack of sleep brought on by the restless ghosts in my head, it's unlikely that I'll hit on it soon. But what else can I do but try? If there's any way to thward the organization's aims, whatever those ultimately might be, it is up to me to find it. It's the only purpose in life that I have left._

*A civilian is dead. Forty-eight hours for discussion.*


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

So, the other exorcist must have failed. What now? Are you guys going start random lynching? Chances are you might get a 'dead' person anyways.


----------



## Sylph

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

...Welp. Do we still lack leads?


----------



## Mai

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

I'm surprised I'm still alive, even though it's not that surprising considering the number of experienced players here!

Anyhow. After lurking through the list of who posted, I've concluded the most suspicious inactives out of here are bulbasaur and Light Yagami; neither of them voted for Butterfree and I could easily imagine them both being active enough to send in actions without posting. From what I remember, HighMoon (chosen by complete post count, not when players last posted) tends to lurk more in mafia and the same goes for Glace. Of course, these are only the inactives; it's likely that some of the more active players are mafia instead. However, we have more to lose by lynching them. So. (I don't know why this needs mentioning, considering the general experience and knowledge of most everyone in the game.)

... I _really_ overuse parentheses, don't I.


----------



## bulbasaur

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

Well. How can I say this. I'm an exorcist (and exorcised RK-10 to confirm that he was in fact the dead exorcist; looking back, that was useless). I'm pretty useless anyway, but I assume that there won't be any more exorcists, so I guess I'm pretty much guaranteed a win unless the town lynches me while I'm a ghost, so I'm the best person to vote off, probably. I didn't vote for Butterfree because my vote would have been useless by the time I'd posted, btw.


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

I haven't been keeping up with Mafia recently, so I don't really know whose playstyle tends more toward lurking versus activity; I suppose I'll have to take your word on that, although usually being lurkyloos in other games doesn't mean that their inactivity is in any way helpful in this one, or any more likely to make me want to keep them around when we have no other leads.

That said, I guess you do make a good point about not voting for Butterfree; it's a small thing, especially considering that they may have just dropped off the radar in general around the time when everyone was voting (only Light has even posted since then, right?), but it's... something in a game where we have nothing else. :/ Eh. I'm not really convinced that's big enough to act on at the moment unless anyone else has anything a bit more concrete.

Regardless, I don't think I'll vote for anyone at this point. I don't like abstaining, but I don't like nominating people without giving them a chance to contribute or at least explain themselves, either. I want to wait and see if anyone else in general has anything to contribute—maybe someone has information and just hasn't had a chance to say something yet—and I want confirmation that Glace, bulbasaur, Flower Doll, Light Yagami and Grass King are still at least paying attention. I've never found playing games with dead weight particularly enjoyable.

EDIT: oh look, 20-minute ninja. Well, since bulbasaur is at least paying attention I am less inclined to lynch him, then. If you're willing to let yourself be lynched then that's... admirable, but I would still rather lose someone who isn't even playing at all if we really have no other leads.


----------



## Dragon

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

I'm not really sure about who are the most experienced mafia players, but I am kind of surprised that Kratos is still around, if Butterfree and Twilight Sparkle are gone, yeah. Um... maybe we could lynch someone who posted like once near the beginning of the game, if we don't want to use our abstain? is there anyone that even fits that criteria


----------



## Eifie

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

I don't know; would it really be suspicious of someone not to have voted for Butterfree? I've always seen very little point in voting for someone if ey's already got a lot of votes on em, even if I do support eir lynching. Considering that Butterfree was pretty much doomed due to inspection, I'd think that if anything the mafia _would_ vote for her to try and give themselves some cover.



Windragon said:


> I'm not really sure about who are the most experienced mafia players, but I am kind of surprised that Kratos is still around, if Butterfree and Twilight Sparkle are gone, yeah. Um... maybe we could lynch someone who posted like once near the beginning of the game, if we don't want to use our abstain? is there anyone that even fits that criteria


Well, we don't actually know who died today (or yesterday, even, although Kratos did say that it wasn't her). I'm still not really expecting Kratos to die during the night if she's innocent, though, now that people have been wondering about the fact that she's alive in the thread. (Also, Butterfree isn't gone because the mafia targeted her; she's gone because we lynched her.)

Glace has only posted once, to vote for Butterfree. I _think_ it's usually his style to post pretty much only to vote, not that that's very helpful to the town, but I could be remembering someone else; I haven't really played many games on this forum recently.


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

Maybe inactive lynching isn't the way to go. 

I know that when I'm mafia I tend to post, A LOT. The only reason I've posted so much this game is because I was inspector and had REALLY lucky inpections right off the bat, and now that I'm 'dead' I don't fear dying.... funny how death does that.

What if we lynch someone who's being active? Just a thought, you don't have to listen to me, I'm dead.

EDIT: Also I am really surprised Kratos is still around. Usually mafia goes for mods first... I'm sorry Kratos but I'm getting a hunch... just a feeling that means nothing. But I've been lucky so far with hunches.


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

Ok another idea here. This is an experimental mafia right? What if the GM picked people who he knew would be active. It might be a set up, meaning the mods are after us.


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

Active players are just as likely to be mafia as inactive players based on start-of-game role randomization (and no, I don't think Negrek would rig the roles to favor active players—if only the active players were mafia then this game would be obscenely unbalanced in the mafia's favor, and also absolutely no challenge or any fun at all), so going after inactives "because lurking means they must be mafia" or whatever really isn't the right mindset. If they're not moving the game along then I, at least, don't really appreciate their lack of participation—obviously we hope they're mafia and we don't want to lynch innocents if we don't have to, but in a game with no leads and limited abstains you're better off removing dead weight than doing nothing. Also, as you pointed out it's possible that we might end up lynching someone who's already dead—maybe they died and simply haven't bothered telling us because they're barely paying attention anyway. Lynching a dead inactive would be the next best thing after lynching an inactive mafioso.

As for lynching an active player, that can work, but since active players are, well, _active_ and are contributing to moving the game along, you have to balance the chance that that player could be mafia with the chance that you're losing a helpful innocent. You can't just lynch an active player "because they're active" as a result of that. You need a reason to make the risk worth it. If someone has a reason then I'm happy to listen to it, but nothing of the sort has been given so far.


----------



## Light

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*



Hawke said:


> Ok another idea here. This is an experimental mafia right? What if the GM picked people who he knew would be active. It might be a set up, meaning the mods are after us.





Light Yagami said:


> Considering *butterfree* is apparently mafia and surskitty was apparently alien, and I am someone negrek has probably never heard of and a vanilla townsperson, I'm an itty bit suspicious the roles weren't RNG'ed.





Negrek said:


> I can assure you that the roles were randomized.


I'm not as interested in this game because I have a powerless role, and posts seem to be much longer on average in this game than a typical current mafia game, so I get bored going through all of it; this is the only mafia game I've been in where I have not read every word posted (though I've read most). I like to try stuff and gamble a gambit wherever it occurs to me, but in my situation in this game I have no idea how I would. Also, right there I voted for Butterfree, although I don't think whether someone did or not really means much if anything.


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

That isn't a vote. I nominate *Light Yagami* though it doesn't count as a vote, I suggest you living people jump on that.


----------



## Light

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

Reason?


----------



## Negrek

*Re:   Backwards Mafia [D5]*



Hawke said:


> Ok another idea here. This is an experimental mafia right? What if the GM picked people who he knew would be active. It might be a set up, meaning the mods are after us.


Okay, this is the last time I'm going to say this---_the roles in this game were randomized_.


----------



## Light

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

I think I ninja'd Negrek. Or maybe it was just for emphasis. Either way.


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

What you gonna do? Lynch me? I'm dead and everyone knows it. Now, kindly attempt to roleclaim if you can, or if you're dead, tell us. 

You've claimed vanilla, which is useless, so killing you won't do much. And a vanilla is dead, so we might be doing the exorcist's job in getting rid of you. We need to start separating the dead from living anyways.


EDIT: NINJA'D


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

Actually figuring out who's dead and who's not might really help. It will narrow down options... Now for inactives... instead of just lynching inactives one at a time until the mafia kills everyone, the exorcist removes them as well. Once they are told they're dead they might be less inclined to participate in the game.


----------



## Light

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

A civilian is dead, but it's not me. If I was I would simply say so and stop posting.


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

Actually a few are dead, need to check on that, I know at least two.


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

And there's no need to be defending yourself, I'm dead. My vote doesn't matter.


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

Oookay, so. It's getting late (or is already late, whatever) and there aren't any votes that are likely to count, so we have to do _something_ if we don't want to use up our last abstain. Here's the deal: we can either go with Phantom and vote for Light Yagami, take bulbasaur up on his offer and lynch him, go for an inactive who still hasn't posted or someone can actually try to contribute another useful alternative. While I don't find Light as suspicious as Phantom seems to, if he's really not interested in playing anymore (being dead is no reason to stop posting in and of itself, after all) then he isn't doing any good by hanging around; bulbasaur says he's okay with being lynched but hasn't expressed any particular desire to stop playing, so I'm not really comfortable lynching him unless we really have no other choice (perhaps if we get desperate later after our abstains are gone, but ideally it shouldn't come to that!). 

As such, unless someone has another lead I think it's between Light or an inactive at this point; for now I guess I'll go with *Glace* because he hasn't even attempted to defend himself or prove he still wants to play (Light says he's not that interested but isn't willing to let himself be lynched? and I'm sort of inclined to believe him when he says he's a civilian whereas Glace is still a total unknown, so...), but I can be convinced to change my mind if someone else has something to say.


----------



## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

Yes, we're past the voting limit and there seems to be no clear consensus on what to do. Once again, you have twenty-four hours (until 10:00 PM EST October 3rd) to make some sort of vote, or either Glace or Light Yagami will die based, again, on who doing the nominating/voting is actually alive.


----------



## Light

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

I'm willing to let myself be lynched if you guys have good reason to suspect me, but feel it worthwhile to defend myself because if I am not lynched I have a better chance of winning, which I am still interested in doing. If you guys decide you want to lynch me, I'll even vote for myself.

(Not voting for Glace on the off chance Kratos is actually dead. If both he and Phantom are dead, is it a no-lynch or randylynch?)


----------



## Eifie

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*



Hawke said:


> You've claimed vanilla, which is useless, so killing you won't do much. And a vanilla is dead, so we might be doing the exorcist's job in getting rid of you. We need to start separating the dead from living anyways.





Hawke said:


> Actually figuring out who's dead and who's not might really help. It will narrow down options... Now for inactives... instead of just lynching inactives one at a time until the mafia kills everyone, the exorcist removes them as well. Once they are told they're dead they might be less inclined to participate in the game.


Wait, why do we actively want to go after the dead? All the ghosts we've got right now are (almost definitely) innocent-aligned and they can still help out the town by contributing to discussion. I guess it means we have to choose from more players when deciding on a lynch, as you say, but ghosts _are_ allowed to claim to be dead and they could also be userful as lynch fodder later on (we've only got one abstain left, after all). I think that balances out that small downside of having a larger pool of lynch candidates to consider.



Light Yagami said:


> (Not voting for Glace on the off chance Kratos is actually dead. If both he and Phantom are dead, is it a no-lynch or randylynch?)


Yesterday, Negrek said that if Phantom's was the only vote and she was dead, the town would abstain. I would guess that the same would happen today if both of the votes were made by ghosts. I'd really rather not run the risk of using up our last abstain and it seems like *Glace* would be the smallest loss to us, so I guess that's where my vote goes.


----------



## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]*

_*October 1st, 2011*

I suppose it was bound to happen in the end. I could find no way of convincing Inspector Bittern to release me from protective custody, and I've long since given up on finding a way to quiet my demons. They filled my head with their yelling until I could no longer think; they drove me to agitation and fits of anger, so that I could not gain the trust of the officers who watched me; and they kept me awake through long nights with their howling, so in the end I could no longer care about what I did, as long as it silenced them. The gods help me, but I wept when I killed him, and it was not for sorrow, but relief.

If I do as I say, it will all stop, they whisper to me. They are my only guidance, the only hope any of us has of defeating the organization. There is nothing I can do by sitting cooped up under the police's supervision, and it is clear that they have no chance of actually solving their case. What good is allying myself with them? What good is sitting around doing nothing, when by my actions alone the organization can be broken? When one is delirious with fatigue and defenseless against the constant hum of their words, their reasoning begins, horribly, to seem correct. More seductive, though, is their insistence that only deaths will end it. If I kill when they say to kill, if I trust to them and my own knowledge of the lore, then I will be able to hunt them down and put an end to them. And then, nothing. It will all be over. I will be at peace, and I will have done a great service to the world.

I know that it won't end, but desperation will make men forget much. It does not end but only gets worse, and all that keeps me marching along is the lack of any other option save, perhaps, taking my own life. But I know what lies at the other end of that thought, and such is my cowardice that I would rather do murder than face it.

They'll find him at the next shift change, and then they'll come looking for me. I have nowhere to go. They know all my likely haunts. For now, I've stopped at the library to sleep and write, but soon it will close and I will be on my own in the chill night. If only the spirits had as much inclination to guide me in the practical matters of staying alive as they do in directing me to kill people.

If I'm lucky, they'll think that the organization was responsible, that they compromised the safe house, killed the guard, and made off with me. Or perhaps killed me then and there and took the body with them. Or perhaps I escaped. In any case, the best I can hope for is that my deed will be put down to the organization, rather than myself.

Is that not how it should be? Is it fair to call me the perpetrator at all? I did no more than wield the knife. After all, it's not as though I wanted to kill the man. Who could think that I ever wanted this? That I wanted to know what it feels like for the knife to glance off bone when you're stabbing a man to death? That I wanted to have to watch a man drown in his own blood, cursing me with the remains of his last breath? That I wanted to harm anyone at all, that I had any hatred deep enough to goad me to kill?

But oh, I did, once. There was a time that I did. And, perhaps, it has been my penance to receive exactly what I desired._

*Glace is dead. He was not mafia.

Forty-eight hours for night actions.*


----------



## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [N5]*

_*October 5th, 2011*

The nights grow colder, and it would be difficult sleeping even were it not for the constant nagging of the spirits. The city's sprawling, half-abandoned industrial center has given me refuge, although most of the most desirable spots have already been claimed by squatters.

I've kept on the move as much as possible, although I might consider staying here for another night. It was once an executive's office, I think, and though crusted with grime, the glass in the windows is still intact. This gives it some little more warmth than it might otherwise have, and the ruins of the bookshelves, now housing no more than mossy hillocks of decomposing glue and paper, give it the aura, almost of home. The further moss consuming the carpet is a raggedy sort of cushion, albeit a damp one. Like as not this is the best I can hope to find for as long as I am forced out of my home.

During the day, I go out in search of food and information. Either can be scavenged from dumpsters, but it's far from a satisfying endeavor. By now, of course, the public knows a little bit of what is going on, but what is reported in the paper is still heavily censored, stripped down to the barest minimum of information and near as misleading as it is informative. There have been no new deaths reported, and if anything new has come to light over those that have already been recorded, no mention is made of it. With the voices in my head in loud disarray, there is nothing to guide me; I am reduced to being a drifter, pouncing on whatever scrap of news I can find, but ultimately chasing at nothing but empty shadows._

*No one has died.

Forty-eight hours for discussion.*


----------



## Light

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

You mean discussion.

Welp. I still got nothin'.


----------



## Sylph

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

Seems the Mafia is falling behind...hm...*strokes chin* Any idea who's been away for a while?


----------



## Eifie

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*



HighMoon said:


> Seems the Mafia is falling behind...hm...*strokes chin* Any idea who's been away for a while?


Do you mean you think the reason nobody died is that the mafia didn't send in a target to kill? The don would have died instead if that had happened, though. I'm not sure, but I don't think that'd even be affected by heals or anything; it seems more like a modkill. I think we can probably assume that the mafia did send in a target, then, and it failed due to docsave or alien activation. (*Negrek*: if the mafia don didn't send in a night action, would e die and be replaced regardless of whether or not e was being protected that night?)

Hmm. We still haven't heard anything from the two civilians who died on nights three and four. I wonder if they've got a reason for keeping their deaths to themselves, or if the mafia's been going after inactives for some reason. If the two ghosts had been any other role, I guess it could've been more likely that maybe they'd decide to just stop posting after they died (though I don't think being dead is a reason to stop talking); however, the only weapons that a civilian has are the ability to discuss and the ability to vote, with the first being considerably more important, so dying wouldn't change very much. I'd assume that if a civilian chose not to post after being killed, e probably wouldn't have been one to post much before dying, either. (Then again, this would not be true in the case of Light Yagami, but I think he was saying that that's more because he's not very interested in the playing anymore?)

If the mafia's been going after inactives, though, it doesn't seem very likely that the reason for the no death last night was a lucky doctor, which might leave active alien as the more likely possibility in that case. However, it could be that the civilians who died aren't inactive but have just decided not to tell us about it; the target last night could've been someone who's been here and got healed (or activated), or the mafia and a doctor could've both decided to target bulbasaur, since he has claimed at least to have _a_ role, if not an incredibly useful one. The mafia did decide to go after our last claimed exorcist (RK), after all.

(Of course, the mafia could just be going after people without a specific strategy in mind, but I wrote this whole post before considering that >:( Oh well.)


----------



## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

_(Negrek: if the mafia don didn't send in a night action, would e die and be replaced regardless of whether or not e was being protected that night?)_

Yes. It's essentially an inactivity-kill, and I don't let those get blocked.


----------



## Light

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*



Eifie said:


> I'd assume that if a civilian chose not to post after being killed, e probably wouldn't have been one to post much before dying, either. (Then again, this would not be true in the case of Light Yagami, but I think he was saying that that's more because he's not very interested in the playing anymore?)


Eh, I don't really care if I die anymore. I'll still participate, but I really don't know what to do in this game other than bandwagon and add two cents to the big monologues people put out.


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

I also agree that the lack of death tonight is due to a lucky doc save (somehow I doubt that there's more than one alien, though eh, I guess it's hard to put anything past Negrek). I'm still not fond of inactive players, but I don't think they're necessarily any more likely to be mafia just because all of us survived the night. 

I take it there's no new information, then, otherwise someone would've posted by now... hm. bulbasaur, out of curiosity, have you been attempting to exorcise anyone? Obviously you haven't hit anyone yet if you have, and I guess I wouldn't bother if it was me, but I'm wondering, and I'm curious as to who you've targeted, if anyone. Intellectually, I suppose, since there's so little else to do right now. :|

Blargh.

(Inactives, I still want to hear from you! I'm not giving up and just letting you guys drag the game down, you know.)


----------



## bulbasaur

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

Nope. If you'd like me to, though, I could target someone.


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

Eh, no, probably not a good idea at this point. It's possible that the dead civilians who haven't reported back are inactive, but if they're already both dead and inactive then exorcising them isn't doing any particular good. And I guess, as Eifie mentioned, it's possible that the dead civs _are_ active and just not saying that they're dead, for whatever reason. I'm not really sure what the use in that is, though...? I mean, I don't think it exactly narrows down the mafia's targets since they already know who they hit, so the only ones the silent civs are fooling are... the other innocents. :V Dunno. Unless they've thought of some other clever reason to keep quiet that hasn't yet occurred to me.

Meh. I don't like being reduced to just making conversation. >| Not cool.


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

Like I said, making a list of who is dead might help.


----------



## ole_schooler

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

Hey I'm dead.  Not a lot else to say, which is why I haven't been contributing, sorry.  I'm the one who died on night 4, I think.


----------



## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

The usual "twenty-four hours to pick someone to kill." blah blah you have one abstain remaining blah


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

Screw this, I suggest random lynch. I'd say Kratos or Light Yagami.


----------



## Light

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

*Light Yagami* Im dispensible.


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

.... You do realize that I can't vote right? And that I can't nominate two people at once?


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

How is that random if you've had some sort of agenda against me this whole game and Light has already said he's not paying attention?

Offer some sort of argument if you want to lynch me, because right now you're the only one who does; otherwise we either take Light up on his sacrifice or clear out another inactive or something.


----------



## Phantom

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

A hunch, nothing more.


----------



## Mai

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

Well, think of it this way; Light is probably one of the only ones that actually *seem* innocent. Would a mafia call for their death day after day, and insist they're not paying attention so it doesn't matter? Not unless they have a _huge_ faith in the town, which you guys seem to be breaking. A live townine is a live townie, and those are what people need to beat the mafia. 

_Hawke,_ vote for yourself; it'll prove your death and since no mafia have "died" you'll be confirmed innocent. Personally, I think this should be done with most of the "dead" people. Skimming through the "Who Posted" thing, I think WQ is one of the more mafia-ish players--but of course that's just suspicion. There's also Flower Doll, but she's _always_ inactive so now my "slow poster now she's mafia" paranoia has mostly gone away.


----------



## Eifie

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*



ole_schooler said:


> Hey I'm dead.  Not a lot else to say, which is why I haven't been contributing, sorry.  I'm the one who died on night 4, I think.


Was it the night that RK was exorcised, or the night after?



Mai said:


> Well, think of it this way; Light is probably one of the only ones that actually *seem* innocent. Would a mafia call for their death day after day, and insist they're not paying attention so it doesn't matter? Not unless they have a _huge_ faith in the town, which you guys seem to be breaking. A live townine is a live townie, and those are what people need to beat the mafia.
> 
> _Hawke,_ vote for yourself; it'll prove your death and since no mafia have "died" you'll be confirmed innocent. Personally, I think this should be done with most of the "dead" people. Skimming through the "Who Posted" thing, I think WQ is one of the more mafia-ish players--but of course that's just suspicion. There's also Flower Doll, but she's _always_ inactive so now my "slow poster now she's mafia" paranoia has mostly gone away.


I agree; Light Yagami seems pretty not-mafia to me. If we've got to go for someone who's not going to participate just for the purpose of lynching _someone_, I'd rather go for someone like Flower Doll over someone who I'm very much expecting to flip innocent.

Hawke's already proven herself to be dead, hasn't she? On day four (scroll down from there), Hawke voted for Kratos and Kratos voted to abstain. I'm pretty sure those were the only votes. The town ended up abstaining, so Hawke's vote must not have counted.

Could you elaborate on why you're suspicious of Windswept Questant?


----------



## Zapi

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

I think Mai is suspicious of me because I haven't been posting much. Which makes sense, I guess. Although, I really haven't been too active in _any_ of the mafia games I'm in recently, and that's more because of "I don't really care anymore" or "I don't have time" than "I don't have any leads".

I don't know if I've roleclaimed or not, but I'm a simple townie. Not one of the ones who've died, though.


----------



## Light

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*



Mai said:


> A live townine is a live townie, and those are what people need to beat the mafia.


Mai has a valid point, so um, I'm gonna switch my vote to *Flower Doll* for now.


----------



## Kratos Aurion

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

I understand that we'd like the assistance of as many townies as possible, but the problem is that _they are not assisting_. Every game I play I call out inactive players, and every game I play I haven't shied away from lynching them (unless there was a more immediately important target, of course) if they don't at least do us the courtesy of saying "yes I am still paying attention" because, even if they are town, they are incredibly unhelpful town and tend to make the game less enjoyable. :/ If the only people left are a bunch of players who aren't talking then all that means is the game drags on and the mafia picks them off completely uncontested, so if they're not going to help anyway then what does it matter if they die early? It's harsh, I know, and it's not a popular opinion, but when I am town I expect the support of the rest of my town so that the game is actually engaging and fun. My stance on that isn't changing.

That said, though, Eifie makes a valid point—while I don't necessarily think there's any especial harm in sacrificing someone who has outright said they're not really paying attention anymore, especially in a game where we're trying to avoid getting ourselves lynched at random, when that someone is all but guaranteed to be an innocent then taking a stab in the dark is more likely to get the results you need.

(I guess there's also the possibility that Light is an alien? Now I think about it maybe lynching him is a little hasty, although then again since Tailsy was pretty much confirmed as the alien source of the first night's no-kill then he could really only have been activated last night unless there was doctor clash before, and he was saying he didn't really care for a day or two before today, so... eh. Ramble ramble tired run-on sentence aaaaaliensss.)

My point being, *Flower Doll*. Momentary confusion surrounding bulbasaur and Light aside, she was who I said was contributing least after Glace, so I might as well stick to my original guns.

I am currently busytired but at some point I'd like to gather up a list of who's dead/claiming to be dead/has claimed to have what role and all that. Someone else feel free to jump in and contribute something, of course, if you'd like to before I have a chance to get to it. :D


----------



## Light

*Re: Backwards Mafia [N1]*



Negrek said:


> *An alien is dead. An inspector is also dead. You have forty-eight hours for discussion.*


There could always be multiple aliens, but it isn't likely.


----------



## Negrek

*Re: Backwards Mafia [D6]*

_*October 11th, 2011*

Desperation has pushed me closer and closer to the city's center, where there is the greatest chance that I will be spotted and apprehended, but also the greatest chance that I might learn something that would put me back onto the trail of the organization. I've been floating adrift, chased down blind alleys by the whims of the spirits and buffeted by the necessities of survival. It would be too easy for me to slip into this marginal existence forever, to forget who I was and where my duty lies. I have to take action before all impetus flees me.

As it happened, I was to experience both capture and revelation today. I was staying to the edge of the crowd, all too able to pretend that I was another homeless person begging for aid, when I was approached by a young man. "Professor Stanburg?" he asked, eyes screwed up and head cocked to one side as he approached.

I took a step back, not sure if I should flee. To do so would draw more attention to myself than I wanted; better if I could deflect this one man's attention without making a scene. "No," I grunted, and turned away from him, but he went on as though he hadn't heard me.

"It is you, isn't it? But what happened to you? You look terrible."

Who was he? A former student? A junior faculty member? I felt I hadn't seen him before in my life, but it's so hard for me to be sure of anything these days. I wasn't prepared for him to reach out and seize my shoulder, nor for the blast of yelling from the spirits that assaulted me as he did so.

He was saying something, trying to guide me somewhere, and I could only stagger along, trying to remain standing despite my hazing vision and the pounding in my head. His words reached me as if from a great distance, tinny and meaningless--"Here, come on, why don't we get something to eat? We can talk then. I can't believe I saw you there--do you know how hard they've been looking for you?"

Though the clamor for blood and violence was still booming against the inside of my skull, that last range through loud and clear. I managed to pull away, dragging my arm out of his grip and turning to flee. I'm sure he called after me, but I couldn't hear, not with the dead calling for me to turn around again and strike him down. I was half-blind, not caring for the people I shoved aside in my flight. Streets flashed past, half-noticed, as I ran back into the warren of urban decay. Eventually, I flung myself down behind a dumpster, choking on each painful breath, and rested my pounding temples against the heels of my hands.

I hadn't even noticed his pursuit, though I suppose it was lucky he chose to follow. Even as I was cursing the jabbering voices that would not recede, the sound of footsteps cut through their clamor, and I scrabbled to grab a half-rotted hunk of wood jutting from a pile of rubbish next to me and scrambled to my feet, stepping out to confront whoever it was strolling through the alley. It was him, of course.

I swung the beam without thinking, goaded on by bloodthirsty spirits, but he caught it without apparent effort and wrenched it out of my hands. "Come on, now. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here to help you." His tone was soothing, as though he were talking to a dangerous animal--which I suppose I was, at that point. But he was smiling, almost smirking, and he tossed the piece of wood aside as casually as could be.

It was suddenly easy to concentrate on his words, as though the spirits thought I needed no more prompting to do as they commanded. As ever, they proved far wiser than I. For the man spread his hands and said, "I suppose you think there's no way out for you now. But that's not true. You could be very useful to our organization, you know--much more useful alive than dead. Working against us clearly isn't doing you any good. I can assure you that we'd treat you much better than your... present colleagues have." He took a step forward, hands spread. "Certainly we wouldn't leave you living out on the streets like discarded rubbish."

He was expecting me to pull away, or maybe be too stunned to do anything at all. I threw my weight forward, slamming an elbow into his chest and knocking him off-balance. He fell backwards, and I scrambled around him to retrieve my makeshift weapon. He was rising as I swung it as hard as I could into his head. It struck true, the impact jarring my arm so badly that I dropped it, but he only shook his head and laughed before regaining his feet.

"Well, you didn't really let me get the chance to finish my offer," he said, "But perhaps you can guess that things won't be very pleasant for you if you decide to refuse."

I imagine he expected me to be intimidated, but it was almost a relief. There is some measure of regret to killing even the most deserving human being, but the demonborn are a different matter, and they are not quite as impervious as they would like people to believe.

There is a prayer to ward off evil. It works well enough, if you do not contaminate it with the evil in your own heart. There is a prayer to smite evil, and it works, too, if not in a very general way. But with the anger of the departed to aid you and only a very small target that you need to make vulnerable, it is very effective indeed. I swept up two of the largest shards of the shattered board and made ready.

Let them wonder, at the police department, why their latest homicide had stakes rammed through both his eyes._

*Flower Doll is dead. She was mafia.

Forty-eight hours for night actions.*


----------



## Negrek

_*October 17th, 2011*

The killings have picked up again. I'm sure the police are baffled, but it's clear to me they're growing desperate. The organization wouldn't have sent a demonborn to find me if all was going well. Whatever they're scheming, they must be rushing to finish, and, if I am lucky, they may make a mistake.

It was I that made the first mistake, though. After what had happened with the demonborn, I should have been much more vigilant. But I wasn't able to resist temptation and was drawn out of hiding by my desire to snatch a newspaper. For my inattention, though, there is no excuse.

This time it wasn't a member of the organization that waylaid me. "So. How's the life of crime treating you?" was how Inspector Bittern greeted me, and I likely would have fled if she hadn't swooped in and seized my arm while I was still too surprised to act. In that moment, it was all I could do to resist the sudden surge of enmity from the spirits. Here, at least, was someone I could be quite sure had nothing to do with the organization.

"Don't look so terrified," she said. "We're in the same boat now, you and me. Here, why don't we take a walk together?"

I was too confused to protest, and she steered me away from the main thoroughfare, dragging me along with her usual swift, long strides, and jabbering away all the while as though nothing could be more natural. Her words stunned me at least as much as her sudden appearance. "Now, I don't imagine you've been keeping up with the news, so you probably don't know that they've taken me off the investigation."

She talked straight over my strangled noise of consternation. "In some ways it's a hindrance, but there are still enough people loyal to me in the department that I'm not going to be excluded from things entirely. And in some ways, it's a blessing. It frees me up to do a few things that some people might not consider entirely aboveboard. Like welcome you back to the team." She grinned into my perplexed look.

"But how did you find me?"

"Not now. You've got a date with a corpse, and I could only arrange to clear everybody out for a short period of time." Indeed, I could see a tangle of police tape at the end of the street, the site suspiciously unmanned. And, as promised, sprawled on the pavement was a dead body, a man in his early forties perhaps, in jeans and a sweatshirt emblazoned with the name of the university--my university. Inspector Bittern dragged me up beside him, then let me go at last, standing back to let me investigate.

Instead,  I turned to her and asked, "Why did they take you off the case?"

She produced a toothy, bitter smile and spread her hands. "It's been nearly two months. Dozens of people are dead, and the investigation is getting nowhere. Honestly, they should have done it weeks ago."

"There's nobody they could replace you with that would be better, though," I pointed out.

She had to laugh at that. "Well, maybe not. But can you blame them for trying?" She shoved her hands in her pockets and half turned away from me. "Come on. We don't have much time, here." She indicated the corpse. "Not a mark on him. Creepy."

I let her commentary wash over me, only half-listening as I looked over the body. The inspector's assertion was correct; he bore no sign of injury, or even of trauma. His expression was calm, and he looked as though he had simply fallen where he stood, not running or fighting for his life.

"How long do you think we have before they come to take the body in to autopsy?" asked.

"Not long. Maybe half an hour. It may take me a little while to get the results back."

"I don't know. It might not take long." If I am correct about what had killed the man, he will pose quite a puzzle for the coroner, but one that won't take much time to investigate. At the least if they are calling on such powerful magic as this, they must be nearing the end of their preparations. One way or another, this can't go on for much longer._

*A fishing brother is dead.

Forty-eight hours for discussion.*


----------



## Sylph

...Uh oh.

Someone is going to get axed now that a Fishing brother is gone...though, unless I've missed the other brother being killed, shouldn't there be another body?


----------



## Kratos Aurion

I guess either the living brother targeted someone who was protected by a doctor, or they targeted one of the civilians who is dead but hasn't admitted to it.


----------



## Dragon

It's day seven already? Whoa. I guess this has to be a mafia kill since there are no other killing roles, so. And fishing brothers know who the other is, and when one dies the living one gets to vigkill someone the next night iirc.


----------



## Kratos Aurion

Ah, you're right. The way the role is usually played around here the revenge kill happens on the same night (and is only on the following night if the other brother dies via lynching), but Negrek is playing it differently. Well, there you go, I guess.


----------



## Mai

Well at first I was going to wait a little but then I realized oh derp the mafia would _know_ I died pretty much and wouldn't risk me coming out and saying they're lying so.

I'm finally dead. I'd confirm my fishing brother, but some of you will probably be suspicious of me enough and that would probably just put a big target on them. I could vote for myself to prove my deadness and I'm willing to do that, but that's just a waste of a phase (at least for _me)_ if we have nothing else. 

Lynching is pretty important; I have a few of my own ideas (and considering the case of Flower Doll I'm a lot more open to inactive lynching) but first I want to know if all of you are going to insist on me proving myself dead.


----------



## Eifie

I'm willing to believe Mai for now, I think. It wouldn't be the smartest thing for the mafia to claim a dead fishing brother when both of the fishing brothers could expose them for lying.

_Assuming_ that all the roleclaims we've had so far have been truthful (of course, we can't count on that), I think we're left with seven people: Chief Zackrai, HighMoon, Grass King, me, Windswept Questant, Windyragon, and Kratos Aurion. One of those seven would be our unclaimed dead civilian, one would be our other fishing brother, and two of them would have to be doctors. That leaves three. We've lynched two mafia so far and we started with seventeen people; I'd expect 4-5 mafia in a game of seventeen, but I think I tend to overestimate mafia:others ratios, so I think four would be a safe guess? 3/17 seems like too few. Well, two of the people left over would probably be mafia, and the last one could be a doctor, a civilian, mafia, an alien, or an inspector (with the last two being, I think, far less likely).

Well, I've had some thoughts on some of those other six! HighMoon has been posting enough not to stand out as particularly active or inactive, but she's only been posting right at the start of a day phase, and a lot of her posts have only served to make vague comments about what went on the previous night. I also sort of wondered a little about Chief Zackrai, who suggested that Phantom's inspections were unreliable (either because she was lying or paranoid/insane) after she revealed Butterfree as mafia. He was quick to change his mind and vote for Butterfree after a couple of posts, though. I thought he might've been trying to quickly backtrack in order to avoid drawing any suspicion to himself, but of course it definitely could have been an honest mistake (he said he hadn't read the entire thread).

I can't really recall what I noticed about any of the other people who haven't claimed, and I don't have time to reread the thread right now, so I guess I can see what other people have to say and maybe I will think on this more later!


----------



## Phantom

Just want to say I'm dead but still paying attention. But I agree. Zackrai does sound suspicious, sadly though I have no way of proving it.


----------



## Kratos Aurion

We've had two unclaimed dead civilians, haven't we? (yes, I think we do; I could've sworn I remembered someone else admitting to be dead, but I don't remember who it was and I can't find the post again? uuuuhgghgh whatever)

I don't think anyone has any way of proving anything, really. :/ I will say that moony's posts tend to be early and vague in every game I've seen her in, so I figure that's more of a habit than particularly suspicious behavior. Zackrai's as good as anyone else for now, I guess. Not boldvoting yet because I don't like to do that so early in the day, but considering he's been inactive on top of everything else... bleh.


----------



## Sylph

Me posting early in a day is a habit of mine. Mostly due to me not knowing what to add to be helpful. Sorry if I tipped off anyone's radar with that.


----------



## ole_schooler

Kratos Aurion said:


> We've had two unclaimed dead civilians, haven't we? (yes, I think we do; I could've sworn I remembered someone else admitting to be dead, but I don't remember who it was and I can't find the post again? uuuuhgghgh whatever)...


I think that was me, I claimed dead civvie a few posts back.


----------



## Phantom

Also hasn't Light claimed dead civ?


----------



## Eifie

Phantom said:


> Also hasn't Light claimed dead civ?


He claimed civilian but said he was still alive.


----------



## Phantom

I swear he said he was dead at some point... *searches*


----------



## Eifie

Mai said:


> I'm finally dead. I'd confirm my fishing brother, but some of you will probably be suspicious of me enough and that would probably just put a big target on them. I could vote for myself to prove my deadness and I'm willing to do that, but that's just a waste of a phase (at least for _me)_ if we have nothing else.
> 
> Lynching is pretty important; I have a few of my own ideas (and considering the case of Flower Doll I'm a lot more open to inactive lynching) but first I want to know if all of you are going to insist on me proving myself dead.


Oh, I forgot to say earlier that it wouldn't be such a waste of a phase to have you vote to prove that you're dead, would it? You could vote for yourself and we could have one person vote for what we decide to do today, and then we'll see whether or not there's a tie. I can't think of any reason not to try that, really, whether anybody very much doubts what you're saying or not.

On the subject of proving deadness, the still-living fishing brother might be able to use eir action to help us with that, too. I'm not sure how different the fishing brothers in this game are from the ones I'm used to; it seems like the one who's going to be revenge-killing will get to choose a target tonight, as opposed to choosing a target every night and killing the person e chose on the night that Mai died? If there's no one better for the fishing brother to target (right now it doesn't seem to me that there will be, and then e'd likely end up targeting an innocent), maybe e could target ole_schooler tonight. If they are in fact dead, that shouldn't have any effect.


----------



## Mai

Oh, good point! I thought of that earlier and at some point between considering my deadness and posting it got lost. *Mai,* then, since it doesn't matter at all. Anyway, I guess I'll just wait and see if my other fishing brother decides to claim for now. I don't entirely recall, but I believe we're not supposed to communicate out of thread so.

Are we going to do anything else other than that?


----------



## Phantom

Well it does matter. If we don't lynch someone we may lose an abstain.

Ah here.


----------



## Mai

I meant "doesn't matter at all" as in my vote specifically.


----------



## Phantom

I am dead too!

We should have an after-life party. I'll bring the dip.


----------



## Negrek

As usual, we come to the end of our forty-eight hour period and there's only one bold vote. Twenty-four hours if anyone wants to go with something different, remember you have only one more abstain, etc.


----------



## Eifie

Mai said:


> Lynching is pretty important; I have a few of my own ideas (and considering the case of Flower Doll I'm a lot more open to inactive lynching) but first I want to know if all of you are going to insist on me proving myself dead.


Now that we've settled the issue of you proving yourself dead, can we hear those ideas?

Or anyone else, too! Surely _someone_ must have thought _something_ about somebody else over seven game days? :c I myself am still not convinced about HighMoon's posting habits in this game; I looked through a couple of other games and it did seem to me that she was posting more and saying more than she has been in this one. I guess it's entirely possible that she's just not been able to think of much to say in this game specifically, though (the vague comments about what went on the night before still happened in the other games), and it's just a feeling I've got, so... eh. I'd be okay going for Chief Zackrai today, I guess, especially since he still hasn't posted since we talked about possibly lynching him. I don't think he's posted since day three.


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## Mai

Eifie said:


> Now that we've settled the issue of you proving yourself dead, can we hear those ideas?
> 
> Or anyone else, too! Surely _someone_ must have thought _something_ about somebody else over seven game days? :c I myself am still not convinced about HighMoon's posting habits in this game; I looked through a couple of other games and it did seem to me that she was posting more and saying more than she has been in this one. I guess it's entirely possible that she's just not been able to think of much to say in this game specifically, though (the vague comments about what went on the night before still happened in the other games), and it's just a feeling I've got, so... eh. I'd be okay going for Chief Zackrai today, I guess, especially since he still hasn't posted since we talked about possibly lynching him. I don't think he's posted since day three.


Um okay but also you _do_ know that one bold vote is me right? I don't want to lynch myself off just to prove myself dead :/

I'm suspicious of both Grass King and HighMoon; Grass King was helpful at first, especially with the role list, but then just seemed to stop talking later on. Also, fixing up a role list is not always a sign of innocence; for example in Grand Carnival I was the main one organizing the amount of each role simply because that made my targets easier to pick out. (Do I go after the most helpful role or is there still a doctor/clown left to heal them, etc...) HighMoon to be honest I sort of ignored, but after looking at an old log and thinking about things I realized she does sometimes tend to keep quiet when she's mafia. However, I'd like to note that really old games aren't the best ways to determine habits; if you look at _my_ earliest games you'll probably see an incredibly terrible player and I'd like to think that I've improved immensely.

I trust Kratos and Zapi more than I did before, but I still have some ridiculous opinions about that. For some reason a while ago I decided an active Zapi was an innocent Zapi, and I've never stopped with that superstition. For Kratos it's more of a gut feeling, but they helped us lynch off Flower Doll so.

I might as well say this now before you all forget or something and then I die for real; Zackrai is my fishing brother so no I'm not 0kay with lynching him off at all!


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## Kratos Aurion

Eifie said:


> I'm not sure how different the fishing brothers in this game are from the ones I'm used to; it seems like the one who's going to be revenge-killing will get to choose a target tonight, as opposed to choosing a target every night and killing the person e chose on the night that Mai died? If there's no one better for the fishing brother to target (right now it doesn't seem to me that there will be, and then e'd likely end up targeting an innocent), maybe e could target ole_schooler tonight. If they are in fact dead, that shouldn't have any effect.


On the this subject: I can understand the living fishing brother not wanting to out themselves (although I think all kills would happen at the same time, so even if the mafia went after them the kill wouldn't be wasted? eh, no one wants to die, can't blame 'em), but maybe Mai can tell us a little more about how the role is going to work? Without quoting the PM, of course, but yeah.

Oh, and those ideas you mentioned having, Mai. I would also like to hear those!

So are we definitely going for Zackrai, then? I'm still not totally sold on moony and would rather go for someone totally inactive, but I'll admit that I haven't paid attention to any of her recent games so her behavior may be unusual after all.


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## Mai

Mai said:


> Um okay but also you _do_ know that one bold vote is me right? I don't want to lynch myself off just to prove myself dead :/
> 
> I'm suspicious of both Grass King and HighMoon; Grass King was helpful at first, especially with the role list, but then just seemed to stop talking later on. Also, fixing up a role list is not always a sign of innocence; for example in Grand Carnival I was the main one organizing the amount of each role simply because that made my targets easier to pick out. (Do I go after the most helpful role or is there still a doctor/clown left to heal them, etc...) HighMoon to be honest I sort of ignored, but after looking at an old log and thinking about things I realized she does sometimes tend to keep quiet when she's mafia. However, I'd like to note that really old games aren't the best ways to determine habits; if you look at _my_ earliest games you'll probably see an incredibly terrible player and I'd like to think that I've improved immensely.
> 
> I trust Kratos and Zapi more than I did before, but I still have some ridiculous opinions about that. For some reason a while ago I decided an active Zapi was an innocent Zapi, and I've never stopped with that superstition. For Kratos it's more of a gut feeling, but they helped us lynch off Flower Doll so.
> 
> I might as well say this now before you all forget or something and then I die for real; Zackrai is my fishing brother so no I'm not 0kay with lynching him off at all!





Kratos Aurion said:


> On the this subject: I can understand the living fishing brother not wanting to out themselves (although I think all kills would happen at the same time, so even if the mafia went after them the kill wouldn't be wasted? eh, no one wants to die, can't blame 'em), but maybe Mai can tell us a little more about how the role is going to work? Without quoting the PM, of course, but yeah.
> 
> Oh, and those ideas you mentioned having, Mai. I would also like to hear those!
> 
> So are we definitely going for Zackrai, then? I'm still not totally sold on moony and would rather go for someone totally inactive, but I'll admit that I haven't paid attention to any of her recent games so her behavior may be unusual after all.


I suppose I ninja'd you? I'm just going to go dig through my PMs and get back to you all on that because ugh I'm being really scatterbrained right now.


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## Kratos Aurion

Yeah, you did ninja me, sorry. Had the reply window open, walked away to eat and then posted without checking again. :P

Hm! Well, I have no particular reason to mistrust you or believe you aren't dead, so I guess I'll take your word for it and not lynch Zackrai unless someone has some impressive evidence to the contrary. As I said, though, I'm not really sure he has that much to worry about now that he's outed; he can only kill the once (if he's actually paying attention >>;) so he's not necessarily a huge threat to the mafia, and even if they do go after him I would guess that Negrek would allow his kill to go off at the same time as the mafia's and it wouldn't be wasted or anything. It does sort of narrow down the number of people the mafia knows not to attack at night, though. :/

Eh. Well, Zackrai, if Mai's telling the truth and your secret's out, would you mind voicing your opinion on Eifie's plan to verify ole_schooler's death? If you have other specific targets in mind then you don't need to share, but maybe just whether or not that's something you're willing to consider.

And as for lynching... honestly I think I'm more suspicious of Grass King right now than I am of HighMoon—he is usually quiet, but it does seem odd for him to start out with those helpful lists and then drop off suddenly (and without answering some of the questions we had about them, iirc?)—though I think there's currently a higher number of people who are suspicious of moony. I've been wrong plenty of times before (witness ASB Mafia 2009 if you care to dig back that far), so... eh! I could be convinced either way. I'll throw my vote in for *Grass King* for now, though.

(Alternatively, Zackrai can go for moony (or Grass King if y'all'd really rather lynch HighMoon instead) tonight? That's a huge risk considering that both of them might be innocent, so ole_schooler is probably safest, but... a thought, I guess.)


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## Sylph

I have been trying to say more in this game, but like I said i really have no idea what to say. I've pretty much lost track of who is alive and who is dead. With that in mind, I don't even know who to vote for because for all I know I'm voting off a ghost. Simply put this kind of game is confusing to play, but I'll admit it fun to run a game like this because you know all the tricks that go on behind the scenes.

Mai, I can understand why you wouldn't be sold on me and I don't really blame you. Throughout this game, I haven't been all that helpful in the discussion department. All I can do is claim innocent and hope that you all will believe me.

As for now...lynching *Grass King*. No rhyme or reason, just me hopping on a wagon. Sorry Grass...


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## Mai

Anyway, the role PM reveals little that wasn't already said in the sign-up thread. Shouldn't only one of you be voting, though? I thought the whole point of this was to prove that I'm dead.


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## Eifie

Eifie said:


> One of those seven would be our unclaimed dead civilian, one would be our other fishing brother, and two of them would have to be doctors.


Whoops, this isn't actually correct; I'd forgotten that Glace was innocent and we've got no clue what his role was. That's not necessarily two doctors, then.



Mai said:


> Um okay but also you _do_ know that one bold vote is me right? I don't want to lynch myself off just to prove myself dead :/
> 
> I'm suspicious of both Grass King and HighMoon; Grass King was helpful at first, especially with the role list, but then just seemed to stop talking later on. Also, fixing up a role list is not always a sign of innocence; for example in Grand Carnival I was the main one organizing the amount of each role simply because that made my targets easier to pick out. (Do I go after the most helpful role or is there still a doctor/clown left to heal them, etc...)


Well, yes, that's why we needed another thing to vote for! Although, right, now we've got too _many_ votes; I guess either Kratos or HighMoon will have to withdraw.

I'd sort of thought the same thing about Grass King; I've always found making lists and other ways of organizing information to be a good way for mafia to blend in and appear to be helping without actually offering much of anything new. (I mean, I don't think that lists are useless at all, but they are an easier way to get points for contributing.) Innocents can do that too, of course, but that seems to be the only thing he's actually contributed at all and he hasn't posted since day three.

If I'm not actually the only one suspicious of HighMoon, I think I'd rather lynch her than Grass King, but it's true that Zackrai could go for HighMoon tonight. It's sort of risky, but I might actually prefer that to confirming ole_schooler's death. Grass King hasn't said anything at all for a while, so I wouldn't really mind removing him from the game entirely if he still doesn't speak up; I'm glad HighMoon's trying, and if she's killed during the night and turns out to be innocent, at least she'd still be able to post. If I've counted correctly, there are only eight people still alive, though, and I think up to three of them could be mafia. If that's true and both Grass King and HighMoon turn out to be innocent, and the mafia kill another innocent tonight as well, it'd be down to three mafia vs. two innocents/other. I don't think that's very likely to happen, but I guess that risk might not be worth it.


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## Chief Zackrai

Actually, Kratos, I am completely open to suggestion, mostly because I haven't been paying attention, and this is mostly because I thought I was dead myself 0_0

Not exactly sure where I got that idea, but it was out there.


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## Kratos Aurion

Well then, Zackrai, since the decision will ultimately fall to you, do you think it's worth the risk to kill HighMoon or Grass King tonight instead of ole_schooler?

I'll also *unlynch Grass King* while I'm here; moony, please leave your vote on him unless we come up with some reason not to lynch him at all.


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## Chief Zackrai

why do we think killing Highmoon or Grass King is risky?


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## Mai

Because there are a lot of dead innocents and we're at risk of losing.

Although honestly I don't see the point of being so cautious about this; there's no way to get rid of the mafia otherwise, and with the doctors either inactive or dead we're decreasing rapidly. Yes, this is a bit reckless; however, who else has a better idea?


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## Chief Zackrai

Oh!

Well, then. Let me go through the thread and see which one of the three I'm more suspicious of.


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## Grass King

The reason I've not been as active is because ... I kinda forgot about it.

However just to try and save my own skin I vote for *HighMoon*. However, if I don't survive then heed my warning, don't trust Kratos.


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## Mai

Grass King said:


> The reason I've not been as active is because ... I kinda forgot about it.
> 
> However just to try and save my own skin I vote for *HighMoon*. However, if I don't survive then heed my warning, don't trust Kratos.


Do you have a roleclaim? Feel free to point me to where you did; I don't really want to look through the thread at the moment so.

And what's your reason to be suspicious of lynching Kratos?


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## Kratos Aurion

I do _so_ detest people just popping up to say "lynch/don't trust so and so" and then leaving it at that. It carries no weight or credibility whatsoever. No one will believe you if you don't provide a reason; I can't defend myself, if necessary, if you don't provide a reason. Even if it's just a hunch, admitting that is better than sounding cryptic and vague and hoping someone will follow along. A good townie is clear and helpful, not cryptic.

Does that sort of response also make me more suspicious of you? Not necessarily. It is, however, a very annoying habit that wastes time (what if you don't log on again before nightfall and lose your chance to convince us? you could've just said so right there!) and I would love it if people would stop that.


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## Grass King

Okay then, I know this is gonna get me killed in the night, but I'm an Inspector, and Kratos is Mafia.

Also HighMoon and Windragon are both innocent.


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## Phantom

If this is true, can I say TOLD YOU SO?

Wait, we had two inspectors?


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## Mai

Why didn't you _speak up in the first place,_ then? Who else did you find innocent? 

(And also is anyone else going to react to that?)

I would be fine with going for Kratos--personally, they always seemed a little suspicious to me. Zackrai, if Grass King dies innocent, go after them; if Kratos dies innocent, go after him.

There haven't been any mafia members who died in the night, if I recall correctly, so there's no reason why this shouldn't work.


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## Grass King

Because as soon as I say I'm an inspector, then I become a target for the mafia, but since there was a chance I was to be lynched then I had to get the info out. Those three are the only ones I know the alignments of, who are still alive.


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## Mai

Then _why_ are you voting for HighMoon instead if she's also a confirmed innocent (you inspected her yourself!)?


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## Eifie

Grass King said:


> Because as soon as I say I'm an inspector, then I become a target for the mafia, but since there was a chance I was to be lynched then I had to get the info out. Those three are the only ones I know the alignments of, who are still alive.


What have your other inspections been? (And yes, why vote for HighMoon, then?) Also, why did you say that you thought there was only one inspector when you were making your lists?


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## Grass King

*Withdrawing my vote for HighMoon.*

I voted for HighMoon since people were considering the two of us and she voted for me, while no-one was voting for her so I evened it up, and forgot about the alignments I knew.

The people I inspected were HighMoon, Glace, Flower Doll, Butterfree, Kratos and Windragon. (I forgot a couple of times.) And from what I've told you, we know the alignments of all of these.

I said there was only one Inspector to avoid compromising my identity and making myself a target.

Anyway Voting for *Kratos Aurion*. If we lynch it and they're not mafia then lynch me tomorrow. However there's no other way to prove my claims.


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## Phantom

See when an inspector gets a mafia result they tell people. So when exactly were you going to tell us then??? *Grass King*


Cause at this rate there is what... one mafia left? Lynch them tonight and if they are innocent lynch Kratos tomorrow.


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## Sylph

Phantom, part of the reason why he may not have said anything is likely to do with either of the following options.

1) We believe him, but he gets killed during the night by either the Mafia or a Healer clash.
2) We believe him and the Healers don't protect them because they figure the other healer will do it and don't want to cause a Healer clash
3) We don't believe him and we either lynch him or the Mafia gets him.

Either way, without the Healers saying "Hey, I'll protect you" without drawing the attention of the Mafia for one night and killing the Inspector the night after...it tends to get hard to admit you are actually helpful when it means you are ultimately painting a bull's-eye on yourself and wearing a sign saying "Kill me and I'll explode into rainbow confetti and candy! :D"


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## Kratos Aurion

I can sort of understand waiting for at least a day to tell people you've found mafia, though waiting for too long carries its own risks aside from coming off as distrustful. What I'm not buying here is "forgetting" that HighMoon was innocent when it really shouldn't have been that hard to double-check—that would've been the first thing I'd've done, especially since there was still time left at the time. Lynch *Grass King*.

For the record, I am just a civilian. Not a particularly exciting claim, and I admit it's one I can't substantiate, but as I've said before I didn't necessarily want to point the mafia away from me and toward anyone potentially more important. Honestly I would've expected to be targeted before now, but I guess the mafia was just feeling generous? At any rate, we got lucky enough to make it this far with both doctors still intact, though at this rate the mafia's going to know where to look. Ah, well.


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## Dragon

Grass King said:


> The people I inspected were HighMoon, Glace, Flower Doll, Butterfree, Kratos and Windragon. (I forgot a couple of times.) And from what I've told you, we know the alignments of all of these.


Iunno, Flower Doll and Butterfree turned up mafia, so I assume you checked them before they were lynched? Like Kratos said, saying something about them might have been good. Though, I don't see how you'd benefit from confirming me innocent, so I'm sort of inclined to believe you right now.

And like it's been said before, it's sort of suspicious that Kratos is alive if they're not mafia blah blah blah, mafias like killing mods? Grass King, when did you inspect Kratos?


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## Negrek

So you guys have been talking waaay longer than you're supposed to have been, but since I can't go back in time to when I should have told you to zip it, you have another *six hours* to decide on what you want to do and clean up your discussion. For your reference, the votes at present are as follows:

Mai - 1
Kratos Aurion - 1
Grass King - 3

If a tie occurs, ghost votes will be used to break it.


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## Mai

... Yeah, I have no idea where my vote is going (other than myself I guess). At the moment my instincts are still shouting "SHUT UP RATIONAL SELF KRATOS IS MAFIA", but at the same time I'm almost entirely certain that's just leftover paranoia from the tournament battle. I suppose that's a thing that can exist.


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## bulbasaur

Phantom said:


> See when an inspector gets a mafia result they tell people. So when exactly were you going to tell us then??? *Grass King*


That's not always the case. Usually, when I play inspector, I wait until either day 4 or two mafia readings not in a row before claiming, if it's a fairly large game.


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## Eifie

Grass King said:


> The people I inspected were HighMoon, Glace, Flower Doll, Butterfree, Kratos and Windragon. (I forgot a couple of times.) And from what I've told you, we know the alignments of all of these.


Can you tell us on which nights you inspected each of those people?

You only actually seem to have forgotten your action on one night; did you really just happen to forget about the game only during the day phases? I'd expect an inspector who doesn't want to claim (which I guess is less risky in a game like this when e could still reveal everything after eir death) to make more of an effort to try to influence the town to lynch someone that e's found to be mafia. Suggesting an inactive lynch of Flower Doll probably wouldn't have gotten much opposition, for example.

Lynching *Grass King* seems to me like the best way to go here. If he flips innocent, we can probably assume all that he's told us is true and lynch Kratos the next day or have Zackrai target em during the night. If we lynch Kratos, we can't be sure of Grass King's results regardless of what we learn about eir alignment: if e flips mafia, that doesn't necessarily make Grass King innocent, and if e flips innocent, we'll know that Grass King is not innocent, but we still won't know if he's lying about HighMoon and Windragon's alignments. After all, the most effective inspector fakeclaim would contain a combination of true and false results.


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## Phantom

I have a theory.... grass King and Highmoon. Think, sense make it does.


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